Big guns turn out for Rally Ireland

Organisers of Rally Ireland, the penultimate round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) which comes to Irish shores from 15 to 19 November, have released the list of 90 entrants for the event, writes RTÉ Sport's John Kenny.

It's a star studded line up of international and national drivers, the most extensive list and most expensive line up of cars to ever rally in Ireland.

In the battle for the driver's championship there are only four points separating Finland's Marcus Gronholm and reigning champion Sebastian Loeb with three rounds remaining, Japan, Ireland and Rally GB.

Loeb is the top seed for Rally Ireland and will be joined by team-mate Dani Sordo in the Citroen C4.

Gronholm will be looking for help from his Ford team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, and the pair are seeded third and fourth.

It seems certain that the battle for overall supremacy on Rally Ireland will be between Gronholm and Loeb, who have, between them, won every round of the 2007 WRC bar Norway.

Out to stop them on the tarmac roads of the North West will be the likes of Austrian Manfred Stohl and the Subaru pairing of former world champion Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson

The top Irish entrant is Kris Meeke, former Junior World Championship contender, while the three members of the MacHale family are also set to make an impression as father Austin and sons Gareth and Aaron all take to the roads in their Ford Focus WRC cars. Gareth was sixth on Rally Mexico last year, while brother Aaron is the newly crowned National champion.

Other top Irish entrants include four-time Irish Tarmac champion Eugene Donnelly, who has entered a Skoda Fabia, Eamonn Boland, who finished 16th on the recent Rally de Catalunya in Spain and Andrew Nesbitt, the two-time Irish champion.

The only female driver taking part is Emma McKinstry from Banbridge, County Down. A daughter of Irish rally legend Kenny McKinstry, Emma has competed in the 2006 Rally Ireland candidate event and is a regular on national and international rallies.

RTÉ Television will provide full coverage of Rally Ireland starting with live coverage of the opening stage on the grounds of Stormont Castle at  6pm on Thursday 15 November. The event will also be covered on RTÉ Radio, here on RTÉ.ie and RTÉ Aertel.