As the dust settled on an incredible day in the woods above Ballyvourney, the tale of the 2023 Moonraker Forest Rally will always be remembered for a break-out victory for youngster Ryan Caldwell on a remarkable third round of the 2023 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship.
Guided by the incredibly experienced Arthur Kierans, Caldwell would bring his Skoda Fabia R5 home with 9.1 seconds to spare.
Although the data will show six stages victories from eight, and a start-to-finish lead for the youngster, in reality the times were incredibly tight with the top of the time sheets often separated by little more than a handful of seconds.
One of those who remained firmly in the hunt all day was Vivian Hamill & Andrew Grennan, who would bring their VW Polo GTi R5 to second place having traded amongst the podium places throughout the day.
While the leading pair eventually opened a bit of a gap to the field, the battle for third was frantic.
Stevi McCann & Tommy Hayes were in the mix until a great run finished prematurely with a mechanical issue on the final stage, while both Mark Donnelly & Sean Ferris and Jordan Hone & Paul Hone just didn’t seem to be fully comfortable in their Ford Fiesta R5’s and instead settled for Championship points.
The battle for the final step of the podium would eventually come down to the Ford Fiesta Rally2 of Niall McCullagh & Gordon Noble versus the Citroen C3 Rally2 of Conor McCourt & Caolan McKenna.
McCourt would pull 4.3 seconds out of his rival on the final 15.6km Knocknabro stage, but it wouldn’t be enough as McCullagh would still have just 0.4 seconds to spare.
In the 2WD battle, it was set to be a classic showdown between long-time rivals and friends Mickey Conlon and Shane McGirr, and things played out right to form as the pair spent the day trading times across the eight Moonraker Forest Rally Stages.
McGirr and Ben Taggart bent an axel in their Lada VFTS on the opening loop, but by mid-day service sat just 5.1 seconds off Conlon.
The next round of the 2023 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship sees us remain in the South of the country as the Jim Walsh Cork Forest Rally roars into life on August 20th, the fourth stop of the 2023 season.
