Motor Sport:Two rally drivers on a major mission this weekend are Gareth MacHale (Rathcoole) and Ray Cunningham (Galway).
MacHale, with co-driver Paul Nagle (Killarney), contests the final round of the World Rally Championship, Rally Wales GB, in a Ford Focus WRC.
Their target is to add more WRC points to their rally CV as the talented Irish crew prepare for a full championship campaign in 2007. Also competing over the tough Welsh forest stages are Ulstermen Phillip Morrow, Neil McCance and Connor McCloskey.
In the WRC, Ford have won the Manufacturers' Championship for the first time since 1979, and Finnish drivers Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen are fancied to give Ford another win on British soil.
Following yesterday evening's ceremonial start in Cardiff Millennium Stadium, the real action started from Swansea this morning and after 17 stages over 355 km the rally will finish on Sunday afternoon back in Cardiff.
Ray Cunningham won the Killarney Historic Rally last year in a Mini Cooper S. The Pirelli Tarmac Historic Championship winner is all geared up for a second end of season win over the classic stages of the South-East, which include Moll's Gap, Beallaghbeama and Caragh Lake. Cunningham leads off the Porsche 911s of six-times winner Dessie Nutt, Todd Falvey, Belgian legend Marc Duez and Nick Whale. The latter three are running in the Post-Historic class where the main opposition comes from a trio of Ford Escort RS Mk.1s in the capable hands of Joe Connolly, Denis Moynihan and Frank Cunningham.
Tom Randles and Martin Freestone are the top two in the Classic category in Escort Mk.2s. The impressive entry of more evergreen Ford Escort Mk.2s in the Modified Classic section is headed up by Dessie Keenan, Phil Collins, Kevin O'Donoghue, Peter Kelly and Kevin Kelleher.
This popular two-day event is sponsored by Cork-based mobile catering company Great Stuff Caterers, and is also supported by various local companies and The Christmas In Killarney Festival.
WEEKEND FIXTURES
Saturday -Killarney & District MC, Historic Rally, starts Killarney 12.50pm.
Sunday -Killarney & District Historic Rally, re-starts Killarney Racecourse, 7.45am; Carlow CC, Rallysprint, Mondello Park, 10am.
