Last year’s winner Brian O’Keeffe in his Subaru Impreza has won the Darren Swanton Memorial Cork City Rally sprint sponsored by Great Stuff Caterers for the second year in a row. He used all his experience to bring his car home in less than one second ahead of runner up Jermery Drislane in his Subaru WRC. Third place went to the first two wheel drive car of Allen Tracy in his Toyota Corolla. Around 2,000 people witnessed what was a very successful 2011 event which saw 58 cars tackle the 2.4km mixed surface track over seven runs. The sun shone down on this charity event which was run to raise funds for charity, Marymount Hospice being the main beneficiary along with Operation Uisce.

The opening run was dominated by Owen Murphy, the current leader in Valvoline National Forestry Championship, in his Hankook Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 who went into an 8 second lead. He was the only competitor to break the 2 minute mark clocking a 1 min 54 sec time. Brian O’Keeffe was next with a 2 min 02 sec time while Mick Cremin was 2 sec slower to take third overall. Jason Ryan in his Honda Civic clocked an impressive 2min 05 sec to put him fourth overall.

The second run saw major excitement with Owen Murphy spinning off and blocking the track on the last corner, affecting a number of following cars. Owen and the interrupted cars got another a second run at the end of the field which left Owen just 3 sec ahead of O’Keeffe. The third run proved to be the deciding lap with Murphy’s engine expiring leaving Waterford’s Brian O’Keeffe in control. He never relinquished his led again despite a serious challenge from Jermery Drislane. Jason Ryan was posting sub 2 min times to secure third place until the sixth run when a problem with the car 100 metres from the start line ended his challenge.

The remainder of the event saw O’Keeffe pacing himself for a finish while Drislane continued to push putting in the fastest times on runs 6 and 7. But it was not enough with O’Keeffe holding on by just 63 hundreds of seconds. It was an exciting finish to hard fought event and great credit must go to O’Keeffe for great tactical drive and to Drislane who put the fastest lap time in stopping the clocks at 1 min 47 sec on run 4.

The top ten was as follows.

1 Brian O’Keeffe (Impreza) 13m 06.03s,

2 Jeremy Drislane (Impreza) 13m 06.66s,

3 Allen Tracy (Corolla) 13m 52.71s,

4 Ian Chadwick (Astra) 14m 07.46s,

5 Liam Howlett (Escort) 14m 12.02s,

6 Peter Desmond (Nova) 14m 20.63s,

7 Stephen Sheehan (Sunbeam) 14m 36.73s,

8 Tommy O’Farrell (Peugeot 106) 14m 38.74s,

9 Paul Bruton (Civic) 14m 44.10s,

10 Pat O’Connell (Peugeot 205) 14m 50.00s.

The first women home were Ciara Deasy in the Toyota Corolla followed by Niamh Ryan in a Peugeot 205.

Conor Calnan – PRO for Cork City Rally Sprint

Pics : Ger Leahy