West Cork Rally 2012
John competed on this years West Cork Rally based in Clonakilty South West of Cork, gaining a stunning 5th overall and First in Class.
Swapping his usual Co-Driver Rob Fagg for local man Alistair Wyllie, the duo contested the challenging event held over 2 days on St Patrick's weekend this March.
The event consisted of 16 stages - most around the 10 mile length - which was broken down to 4 stages repeated twice each day giving a total of 150 competitive miles.
The compact event started on Saturday at 11.00 AM with a blast round the famous "Ring" stage. John was quickly on the pace setting the 8th quickest time and consolidated his position with a 3rd quickest time on the second stage where conditions were found to be challenging following a heavy hailstorm just before the start of the test. Service followed and the two stages were repeated again where John moved up to 5th overall.
The afternoon took the crew on to two more stages including a very short "Town Stage" where John beat the bogey being one of just 3 crews to be under the one minute six second mark. In fact John was under 60 seconds for the stage ! Another quick service then saw these two stages repeated again before parc-ferme for the night.
Sunday dawned with glorious sunny weather and another 4 stages to be tackled twice ahead of the duo. Re-Starting from 5th Place at 10.00 AM John found himself briefly in fourth place when Colm Murphy retired with fuel pressure problems, before he was passed by Alan Ring a notable quick Irish Tarmac expert who had Andrew Nesbitt's former co-driver James O'Brien alongside him.
Service followed the two tests which were repeated again. A rogue time on Stage 11 saw the team showing in 6th place but an appeal was lodged by Alistair and the time was later corrected but for the rest of the day the rogue time was in the preliminary results.
John managed to get the gap to 4th place down to 3.6 seconds only for Alan Ring to set a very quick time on the penultimate stage at which point John decided to settle for a well-deserved and excellent 5th Overall and 1st in Class.
John commented that was one of the best weekends with an excellent result and Alistair's local knowledge really helped in keeping the stages times right up there. His thanks extended to Dean, Andy and Andy P who prepped and serviced the car and ensured it was spick and span after every service with the car running faultlessly all weekend. Keeping some of the very quick and superbly prepared Mark 2 Escorts at bay was also particularly pleasing, with power over 300 BHP, traction control and a host of other gizmos these Escorts, and crews with local knowledge, can be a real handful and John was really pleased to have kept ahead of them over the grueling weekend.
The cars returned to a fanfare welcome in Clonakilty town centre where a parade of the top 7 finishers took place.
TV coverage of the event can bee seen on Men and Motors from the 11th April 2012 as well as plenty of clips on you tube.
