Keith Cronin claimed victory on Saturday’s Modern Tyres Ulster Rally to further extend his Irish Tarmac Championship title fight with Matt Edwards and Callum Devine.
Cronin who was former winner of the Ulster Rally in 2017 when it was based out of Londonderry took the fight to Devine from the first stage which he stayed at the top to the end, winning the event by over 15 seconds.
A third win of the campaign to add to the perfect scores he recorded at the opening two fixtures — February’s Galway International and March’s West Cork Rally has now put Cronin in the box seat for a first Irish title since 2016.
Reigning Irish Tarmac Champion and last years Irish Class winner in this event Callum Devine was keen to kick on in his Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 following a winning debut in the new supermini at Donegal.
A second place in the event was still an encouraging results as he switches his focus at Rali Ceredigion in a couple of weeks time.
With three-time British Rally Champion Edwards it was a different story. The pair had a wheel off from the car and stopped towards the end of this stage resulting them in a DNF to take his championship run a bitter blow.
Josh Moffett claimed a distant third but he did secure first place in the Citroen C3 Trophy.
Aoife Raftery and Hannah McKillop take the spoils in the RC4 class as well as top front-wheel-drive crew. Ray Breen and Damien Morrissey win the Historic class while Damian Toner and Aodhan Gallagher took the spoils in the modified class.
