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IRELAND’S only event to cater solely for historic rally cars and night-stage rallying, the Rentokil-Initial Killarney Historic Rally was officially launched on Sunday evening at Scotts Hotel.

Killarney and District Motor Club announced details of this year’s rally, which will run on Saturday, December 3, and will count as the first round of the 2017 Clonakilty Black Pudding Irish Tarmac Historic Rally Championship, final round of the 2016 Plasticbags.ie Southern Four Rally Championship and final round of the 2016 HRCR West Wales Rally Spares - Stage Masters Challenge.

Event clerk of the course Kevin Flannery and his crew have built this year’s rally around the competitor and in doing so has selected a route of classic stages based around Killarney town, offering the competitor 110km of competitive stages, followed by short road kilometres allowing for an easy recce, Centralised service area at the event HQ and the popular feature of the final stage to be run in the darkness. “With the unfortunate cancellation of last year’s event, we decided to run this year as a exact replica, this makes both a labour and financial sense for us the organisers and should make it all the more attractive to our loyal competitors,” said Kevin.

The event, which is worth millions to the local economy, will once again be hosted at The Gleneagle Hotel.

There will be a ceremonial start on the Friday evening in Main Street, Killarney, at 7pm, while the real action gets underway on Saturday morning with the iconic “Molls Gap”, often rated by rally drivers as being the best and one of the most-challenging stages in the world. “Coolick”, the Kilcummin village stage is always a favourite, while “Anablatha” is a newly designed stage in the Gneeveguilla area, sections of which have been used in the past by the Rally of the Lakes. “Gortnagane,” which runs parallel to the main Rathmore/ Killarney road, is regarded as one of the most technical, narrow, and demanding stages of Killarney rallying. The second run, over Gortnagane, will be run under the cover of darkness.
Entries remain open, see http://www.shannonsportsit.ie/evo/Login

Regulations and further information available is available from http://www.killarneyanddistrictmotorclub.ie/
 

 
A group at the launch of the Rentokil Initial Killarney Historic Rally on Sunday. Killarney and District Motor Club will host  Ireland’s only event to cater solely for historic rally cars and night stage rallying on Saturday December  3rd.  Included from left are are Jason O'Brien, Martin Farrell (Chief Marshal), Denis McCarthy, Rob Duggan, Joe McCarthy, Johnny Hickey (PRO), Michael O'Mahoney (Rentokil Initial managing director), Anthony  O'Connor (deputy clerk of the course), Kevin Flannery (clerk of the course), Padraig Moriarty, Denis Nagle, Denis Walsh and Pat Hayes.
PICTURE: EAMONN KEOGH