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For
Mark Donnelly, last weekend's Pirelli International Rally fell
on his 19th birthday, and once again the young Omagh driver showed
tremendous speed for his youthful age on the fast, dusty forest
roads in the Cumbrian Kielder forest complex. Having won the opening
round of the Citroen Racing Trophy (CRT) UK and second round of
the CRT Ireland, Mark and co-driver Paddy Robinson entered the
weekend's event in confident mood, but misfortune was to strike
even before they got to the first of Friday evenings special stages.
"On the road section out to the first stage, suddenly there
was water coming inside the car and leaking out of the engine
bay, so we pulled over straight away. A water hose had come off,
and it was very difficult to get at to put it back on. We arrived
at the first stage 13 minutes late, picking up a two minute penalty,
but we were lucky, another two minutes later and we would have
been out of the rally!"
To
add to the woes on the Friday night stages in forests, they had
to cruise through the first test, with the car low on water and
were now running second last car on the road. On stage 2, the
Fiesta starting in front of them punctured and the C2's progress
was stymied in the choking dust, costing Mark a further minute.
On the third and final night stage, the unusually named Black
Shed 1, the car now had a full quantity of water and a clean run
netted them fastest CRT time, a good end to a difficult first
night for the team. At this stage Mark found himself 3 minutes
20 seconds behind C2 leader Richard Sykes, a position that seemed
insurmountable.
The
second day brought the meat of the event however, with eight forestry
stages in the fast, heavily cambered Kielder tracks, the infamous
ditches waiting to catch the unwary, but Mark kept the C2 between
the ditches all day, and once again showed his pace. "I woke
up on Saturday and I felt good about the stages ahead. I decided
to see what I could get out of this rally, and really we went
for a big push all day. It was paying off as by the start of the
last stage we were up to second Citroen just over a minute behind
Robert Barrable." Indeed having been over three minutes down
after their previous evening's episodes, Mark had made up significant
time, despite severe tyre wear at times on the stages, but there
was one last drama in store.
"Going
into the last stage, we had second hand tyres on the front as
we had gone through our allocated tyres, and at that stage we
knew we weren't going to catch Robert, so we were happy to ease
it through. Unfortunately though we got a mile into the stage,
and we felt we had a puncture. We had no option but to stop and
change, so it dropped us almost 4 minutes." Nevertheless
Mark and Paddy still claimed 17th overall, 5th in Group R, 4th
Citroen C2 R2 Max home, netting them €2000 from Citroen Racing.
The C2 is now being re-prepared by Robbie McGurk of Motor Sport
Service for this weekend's Killarney International, the third
round of the Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland series, a tight time
schedule for the car and for student Mark.
"I
have a wee exam on Thursday morning, so I'll be straight down
the road then to Killarney to start my recce. It's not ideal but
hopefully we can get our notes done correctly and I'm looking
forward to the stages in Killarney, as they are usually very good
flowing roads."
Mark
has set some fast times before in Killarney in his ST Fiesta,
but this year he has significant opposition in the Citroen Racing
Trophy and will be aiming to improve on his current second position
in the series this weekend.
For anyone wishing to keep track of this young up and coming rally
driver's progress, check out the new website, www.markdonnellyrallying.com
Issued by Andrew Bushe Promotions www.andrewbushe.com
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