Ray Breen wins the 2008 National Forest Rally Championship

For those who have been following the series all year may not be surprised to hear of Ray Breens success but it could have easily been a very different story on the final round.

The 2008 Birr & District Forest Rally returned to the championship after a one year sabbatical. Ray Breen headed the main field but it was Trevor J Harding that headed the time sheets for the first 2 stages. In fairness Ray Breen & Martin Brady had been off the road on the 2nd stage in their Focus WRC losing 17 seconds to the charging group A Impreza of Trevor J Harding & Andrew Purcell. These two cars would dominate the top places for the first 6 stages with Trevor and Andrew keeping in front.

An interesting discussion took place during the 3rd service halt where certain competitors believed that Ray Breen would put on a charge over the last 2 stages. Some didn't believe that they would because of risking the championship win. Ray Gavin, Championship Registrar told us that going by the results after stage 6, if Ray Breen did not finish the event because of trying too hard over the last 2 stages that John Reid would win the series by 1 point so we all resigned to the conclusion that the event was going to be won by Trevor J Harding and Andrew Purcell.

After the final service we headed back to the Rally HQ at the Abbey Court Hotel in Nenagh to watch the stage times come in over the live service. Angus Sealey of Rally.Connect.ie kept us up to date as the times came in.

Trevor Harding had an 11 second lead going into the penultimate stage. When the stage 7 times came in, Ray Breen had taken 4 seconds from Hardings Impreza leaving Trevor still with a strong 7 second lead. In order for the Focus to win, it meant that they would need to take more than a second per mile from Harding & Purcell on the final stage.

The anticipation was getting unbearable as we waited for stage 8 to start and then for each car to produce a final stage time over the flying finish. Ray Breen & Martin Brady were first on the road and their time would come in first. The Focus set a good time of 5 minutes 30 seconds bettering their previous time on that stage by 7 seconds. Then we waited what seemed to be the longest minute interval for the next car. When Trevor & Andrews time came in it was 5 minutes and 42 seconds - one second slower than their previous time which didn't seem right. When they got back to the hotel in turned out that not only did Ray & Martin put on a massive charge over the final 2 stages but bad luck had struck the TJHCars Impreza with gearbox gremlins. Their 7 second lead turned into a 5 second deficit as the Keltech Engineering Focus took 12 seconds out of them on the final stage!

For SVS it was a great result once again in the Hankook National Forest Rally Championship. Similar to the previous round in Cork, our customers won the overall rally, second overall and with Colin Britton and Arthur Kierans winning Group N and 4th Overall making it 3 SVS cars in the top 4. A special mention has to go to Craig Breen & Sorcha Kelly for doing really well in their hired Citroen C2 R2 from Derek Jobb Rally Hire finishing 17th Overall and 3rd in the Junior Section after setting a blistering time on the final stage fastest junior and 2nd fastest 2 wheel drive behind Seamus O'Connell.

A selection of the Incar Camera footage from the weekend has been uploaded to our Youtube Channel (SVSTV) and can be accessed through the following links:

SVSTV.ie
http://www.svstv.ie

Ray Breen & Martin Brady - Ford Focus RS WRC - Stage 8:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XepRHdNATuY

Craig Breen & Sorcha Kelly - Citroen C2 R2 - Stage 8 (2 cameras):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QE3VnStSE0E

Trevor J Harding & Andrew Purcell - Subaru Impreza 555 - Stage 2:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTbF-Rp-bj8

Final top 10 Results:

1) Ray Breen & Martin Brady - Ford Focus RS WRC - 45:44.0
2) Trevor J Harding & Andrew Purcell - Subaru Impreza 555 - +0:05.0
3) Denis Cronin & Helen O'Sullivan - Subaru Impreza WRC - +1:03.0
4) Colin Britton & Arthur Kierans - Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 - +1:27.0
5) John Reid & Enda Shields - Toyota Corolla WRC - +1:34.0
6) Liam Ryan & Jonathan McGrath - Subaru Impreza WRX - +2:54.0
7) Sean Heaney & Liam McLaughlin - Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 - +3:01.0
8) Seamus O'Connell & Brian Duggan - Ford Escort Mk2 - +3:15.0
9) Connie Smith & Breen McNamee - Ford Sierra Cosworth - +3:57.0
10) Moss Fitzgerald & Alistair Wylie - Toyota Corolla Twin Cam - +4:04.0

Lots more online videos @ www.svstv.ie
Official Championship website @ www.hankook.ie
Birr & District Motor Club website @ www.birrmotorclub.com



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