After two years of being based in the home town of the club, Carrick on Suir Motor Club’s premier event the Ravens Rock Rally will move to Kilkenny City this summer. The event has a new management team, a new headquarters and a new stage layout. The rally will bring the best of Ireland’s rallying fraternity to the city over the weekend of June 26- 27.
Club member John Rafter heads the new team as clerk of the course, Pierce Doheny as deputy clerk of the course, Paula Doheny as event secretary, assistants to the clerk of the course Billy Collins and Ned Doherty; stage commanders include Barry Roche, Brian Keogh and Seamus Anderson. The Kilford Arms Hotel will play a major role in the staging of the Motorsport event as the hotel takes over as the rally headquarters. The stage layout will see the Carrick on Suir Motor Club return to a three stage repeated twice layout, giving a total of nine fabulous tarmac special stages.
This Rally will bring to fruition the burning ambition of clerk of the course John Rafter. John is a native of Threecastles, and has been a member of Carrick Motor Club for over twenty years and has taken part both participating and organising events for many years. However, this will be his first time to take the reins and lead the organising team for a rally. Just a few weeks ago at the clubs forestry rally John was CO driving for friend Shay Power and the pair were class 5 winners in their Mk11 Ford Escort. After the finish of last year’s Ravens Rock Rally it was decided within the club that is was time to revamp the rally and a change of stage location was the most immediate requirement.
It was at this point that John put forward his proposal to run the rally from Kilkenny. John already had his groundwork in place and presented this at a monthly club meeting back in September 2009, the proposal was duly passed and he set to work. John’s history as an organiser started with the job of stage commander on a previous Ravens Rock and culminated with taking charge of the famous Mops Gap stage in the Killarney Historic Rally in 2007. Over that weekend John worked as stage commander on no less than three stages, but this only proved to whet his appetite and when the opportunity to clerk his home event in his home town came along he was not going to miss out.
This year the Ravens Rock Rally is counting round in the Triton Showers South East Stages Rally Championship, the Southern Four Rally Championship and the Mitsubishi Ralliart Evolution Challenge Ireland. It is hoped that being part of three of the most prestigious championship in the country will lead to a bumper entry.
The Club’s Forestry Rally was held on the 7th of March last and in the interest of encouraging competitors to enter the club introduced an incentive plan; this proved very successful and will be pioneered again for the Ravens Rock Rally.
The major segment of the plan includes TV coverage of the event by Mick Bracken from On the Limit Sports. In conjunction with On the Limit Sports and the Carrick on Suir Motor Club, the 2010 Ravens Rock will be broadcasted on Setanta Sports Ireland and Motors TV in over 30 countries throughout Europe. Other features of the incentive plan will be published at a later date.
