Donegal had success at the Killarney Historic Rally with Donagh Kelly and Rory Kennedy winning the overall competition.
Two-time world champion Kalle Rovanperä starred at Saturday’s Killarney Historic Rally in Ireland but his quest to take the win was hampered after the opening stage.
The Toyota Starlet cut out on the opening stage. Almost five minutes were lost to an electrical glitch which turned out to be relay-related.
Jason Black’s stunning Starlet didn’t miss a beat for the remaining seven stages. And Rovanperä’s smile just got wider and wider. With his hopes of the class gone, the next priority was a scratch on Moll’s Gap second time through. He did it. Just.
Two stages in and the Kelly household had locked in a provisional one-two, with Eamonn leading his father by four seconds in another M3. Sadly for the younger of the two Kellys, his rally ended one stage later when he went off the road, pinged a few trees and took a wheel off.
Kelly and Kennedy drove their BMW M3 to the finish line with a total time of 1:02:06.4 after eight stages. Following Kelly home was Tomas Davies in a Ford Escort Mk 2, with John O’Donnell’s M3 taking the final podium place.
Last year’s winners Jonny Greer and Niall Burns were ruled out of the running for back-to-back success after a turbo pipe worked loose on their Ford Sierra RS Cosworth 4×4.
In the modified section, Donegal’s Declan Gallagher and his co-driver John McCarthy came in second place in their Toyota Starlet RWD with a time of 57:30.9, 18.6 seconds behind the winners Robert Duggan and Ger Conway in their Ford Escort.
While the modified cars were quicker across the day’s eight stages, this being a historic event, the focus was on the period cars.
