Round six of the Triton Showers Motorsport Ireland National Rally Championship heads to Ballinasloe this Sunday for the Galway Summer Rally which could have massive title permutations.
Based out of the Shearwater Hotel, Galway Motor Club has assembled a capacity 150-car entry for 110km of competitive stages for the event. Central service will be located at Dominic Plant and Tool Hire in Poolboy.
Top seed Josh Moffett and Keith Moriarty hold the upper hand in the main championship after victories in Birr, Munster, and in Monaghan recently as they bring their Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 to East Galway. The co-driver fight, however, tells a different story. Moriarty missed Monaghan due to its date change, so Shane Quinn’s navigator Stephen Reynolds currently leads the overall points.
Quinn and Reynolds will start at car two in a Ford Fiesta Rally2. Dropped scores at Galway, October's Donegal Harvest and the potentially rescheduled Stonethrowers Rally will determine the final destination of both titles.
Donegal duo Kevin Eves and Chris Melly start at three in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, holding third in the points through sheer consistency. Right behind them, Keelan Grogan and local co-driver Ayrton Sherlock line up at four in another Fiesta Rally2, aiming to build on their second-place finish in Munster.
Daniel Cronin and Padraig O'Donovan round out the top five in a GR Yaris Rally2, leading directly into the two-wheel-drive field. Daniel McKenna and Andrew Grennan head Class 14 at car six in a Ford Escort Mk2, fresh off a top victory in Monaghan. Cavan’s Aaron McIntyre and Darren O'Brien follow at seven in their Toyota Starlet RWD, ahead of Jonathan Pringle and Pierce O'Callaghan in another Mk2 Escort at eight.
Mayo modified winner Brian Lavelle teams up with Jack Kelly at nine in an Escort, with Mayo husband and wife crew John Warren and Ruthann O'Connor completing the top ten in a Fiesta Rally2. Ben McIntyre’s Toyota Starlet RWD is top seed in Class 13 at car eleven, followed by Tom Jnr Holton and local co-driver Stephen Joyce’s Fiesta Rally2 at twelve.
Top all-Galway crew Stephen Greaney and Jonathan Folan take car fourteen in their Fiesta Rally2, starting ahead of Tim McNulty’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 at fifteen and Class 13 frontrunner Barry McLaughlin’s Escort Mk1 at sixteen. Seamus Leonard fields a Fiesta Rally2 at seventeen, leading an Escort block containing Rodney Wilton at eighteen and Dave Slattery at nineteen.
Local man Dean Raftery competes in the family Ford Fiesta Rally3, the car he took to class honours at the Galway International in January.Adrian Hetherington starts at twenty-one in an Escort Mk2, while Scottish driver Gordon Morrison is the leader of the Ford Escort Mk2 Challenge element of the championship at car twenty-two.
