Rally Ireland has announced details of the route for the opening round of next year’s World Rally Championship (WRC) stage which takes place from the 29 January to 1 February, writes John Kenny.
A new more streamlined 12-round WRC series comes in to being in 2009 and Rally Ireland is due to host the opening event before dropping out in 2010 and then coming back in for the 2011 campaign.
Last year’s event was won by Sebastian Loeb’s Citroen and at the time, it was voted as the second best round of the WRC.
However, there have been a number of changes to the running of the event, with Ronan Morgan and Sean O’Connor dropped as co-promoters and Motorsport Ireland taking over the running and setting up a new company; WRC Promotions Limited.
As Rally Ireland is a cross-border event, the new company has two Northern Ireland directors; Ronnie Trouton and Austin Frazer, while the rest of the board is comprised of former finance minister Michael O’Kennedy along with the president and vice-president of Motorsport Ireland, John Naylor and Joe Corcoran.
O’Connor and Morgan will continue to manage the event on a day-to-day basis.
The pair invested a lot of time and money in setting up a number of pilot events and Rally Ireland itself last year, but it appears that major cracks surfaced in their relationship with Fáilte Ireland.
Last year, Fáilte Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland invested over €1.3 each in Rally Ireland and the economic benefit to the region was over €9 million.
Funding was slow to come in for next year’s event due to the fact that it is taking place so early in the year, but that obstacle has been overcome with the assistance of Motorsport Ireland.
As for next years route, the shakedown, where the teams test their cars, will be held near Sligo on Thursday, 29 January followed by the official start at Fermanagh Town Hall at 7.30 pm that evening.
In all, there will be a total of 19 special stages and a route covering 1407km visiting Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Donegal.
The service park will again be based at the Institute of Technology in Sligo which the teams will visit twice daily for repairs and services on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Co Cavan village of Glangevlin will see a stage run twice on the Friday, while a special stage in Arigna will be followed by a new run in Boyle, supported by a festival organised by the local community and Roscommon Co Council.
Leitrim will again feature stages at Glenboy, Aughnasheelan and Lough Gill, with the Murley and Fardoss stages in the Tyrone-Dungannon district run for the first time during the hours of darkness.
The Saturday stages are in the Ballinmallard-Omagh-Dungannon area, while on Sunday morning the Donegal Bay run will be followed by a new street stage in Donegal town starting at lunchtime which has replaced Mullaghmore in County Sligo - the scenic seaside village provided a brilliant backdrop as the final stage last year, but it wasn’t a great run.
Stormont in Belfast staged the opening in 2007, but that too is gone.
However, Belfast does feature as the new WRC will be launched there on Saturday, 24 January.
Ford and Citroen have said that they will take part a special head-to-head speed event on the grounds of the castle but it’s a stand alone event and not a part of Rally Ireland.
RTÉ will once again be the host broadcasters for the opening round of the 2009 WRC championship.
With Rally Ireland taking place at the end of January, the Galway Motor Club has been assigned a new date for the Galway International Rally in 2009, with the opening round of the Irish Tarmac Championship running from 16-18 January.
Organisers are hoping to attract some big names before the WRC.
Meanwhile, the Killarney and District Motorclub will meet with the Motorsport Ireland commission on Wednesday, 24 September to discuss the governing body’s decision not to grant a permit to run their Historic Stages Rally in December.
The event, which is the biggest historic rally in Britain or Ireland, has been denied a permit because the club were not adhering to the rules laid down by the commission and the club now will put their case for reinstatement later this month.
