The Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy and the Irish Rallycross Championships will contest the Irish Rallycross Grand Prix at Mondello Park this weekend
The two championships will combine for the biggest rallycross event seen in Ireland for 40-odd years as they contest two completely separate championship rounds, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Not since the hay day of the annual visits by the European Championship to the county Kildare circuit has Ireland witnessed such a top-class list of cars and drivers and big crowds are expected at the two-day event.
A field of more than 25 Supercars includes a host of top-line Irish drivers, who will join the best of the British drivers to will battle through the all-action heats to see who will make the grid for the championship final
All the races will be brodcast live on YouTube and Facebook and the Mondello Park YouTube channel.
Rallycross Cars are split into classes ranging from Production Cars, through Modified Cars and high-performance single seat Rally X Buggies, to the spectacular 4 Wheel Drive Rally X Supercars that accelerate faster than an F1 Car.
All of the current British and Irish classes will be present at the event, with fierce competition expected as drivers from each nation vie for supremacy.
The leading Irish competitor is Derek Tohill (Fiesta) the two-time European Touring car Rallycross and Multi Irish and British champion
But he will be hard pressed this weekend by two other Fiestas in the hands of Mick Leonard jnr and John McCluskey especially since he is using a spare car, which was only rear-wheeled drive for recent events in Finland and Sweden. The car is now four-wheeled drive for the weekend.
Leonard is another British Supercup racer and has the speed in his newly acquired Fiesta to get in amongst the likes of Tohill and the British regulars, which sadly won't include the O’Donovan father and son team of Ollie and Patrick.
Ollie, who won the last UK Round at Lydden Hill, is competing in a rally while Patrick the reigning 5 Nations Champion, is contesting the European championship, which clashes with Mondello this weekend
Of the other Irish, John McCluskey has a chance in his Fiesta, having had an engine rebuild, while Tommy Graham (the peoples champion) will debut his new Ford Fiesta this Saturday and Sunday
Shane Murphy from Cork, the former World Hotrod and Irish Seat Super Cup champion, has entered in a VW polo while Gary Donughue, who is now US based, is returning home to race his Fiesta.
The Morris brothers Darragh Andrew and Michael will all contest this weekend in Subaru Imprezas alongside Pa Ryan (Mitsubishi)
With the O'Donovans absent, the top UK entrant is now likely to be Julian Godfrey (Fiesta) but at the time of writing the full visiting line up had yet to be competed
The Rallycross Grand Prix will kick off with a series of four-lap heats, with up to eight cars on each grid, and the results of these heats will determine the qualifiers and the grid positions for the finals.
To add extra spice to the excitement, each race will include a Joker Lap, which each driver must take once per race.
In the finals, the fastest drivers in each class will get to race for championship points. The non-stop action culminates in the Superfinal where the fastest eight drivers across all of the classes race against each other over six laps.
