For 25 year old Cal McCarthy and his co-driver Eamonn Dullea, in the Carbery Plastics Honda Civic, the home Irish Tarmac Championship event beckons this weekend. Two days of the Cork 20 Rally lie in store and the team are hoping for better fortunes after mechanical maladies on the Killarney and Donegal rounds of the Clonakilty Black Pudding Irish Tarmac series.
A class winning position in the series is now unobtainable, but Cal dearly wants a class win and a top five place in the National on this event. “We will have to settle in and speed up as we go. It’s an event that’s not easy to get to the finish of, and there are plenty of twisty bits to test the driver and car. The class will be very hotly contested. Jason Ryan I’m sure will be going well and Noel Kelleher too could be another challenger. In 2012 we had a great run and ran second to Frank Kelly on the National for quite a while, but we know that’s it’s not an easy event by any means.”
The Clare Stages rally was tackled in the class 11F Carbery Honda, two weeks ago and the result was a class victory and an excellent twelfth place overall, despite dropping to thirtieth over the first two stages with a failed clutch. The gearbox issues which have dogged the team of late seem to be put behind them, and the clutch was remedied during the Clare event, the team setting some superb times over the closing stages. “Clare went better than we expected” added Cal. “We tried a new tyre from Kumho and it worked very well. Once we got the clutch sorted the times were good, so it was a worthwhile exercise before the Cork 20.”
The other Carbery Plastics Honda, driven by Conor McCarthy has been tackling the Irish Forestry Championship this season. So far it’s been a superb year for the young West Cork driver, a potential candidate for the Billy Coleman Award. He is leading the Junior series, despite a break-down on the Cork Forestry event. On Saturday, after making the long trip North to Omagh for the Bushwhacker Rally, Conor recorded another good result, finishing ahead of his Junior rival Shane Kenneally, and now looks forward to the Carrick On Suir and Glens of Antrim rounds of the Irish Forestry series.
Keep up to date with the team’s progress on their website www.carberyplasticsrallying.com Facebook page- Carbery Plastics Rally Team and Twitter @CPRallying.
Issued by Andrew Bushe Promotions- www.andrewbushe.com
Copyright free pictures please credit Eamonn O’Riordan