Breen wins Irish National Junior Rally opener
Kilkenny’s Craig Breen took an emphatic win in the opening round of the Petro Systems National Junior Rally Championship at Mitchelstown, Tipperary yesterday (8 February).
The 18-year old from Kilmurry and his co-driver, Sorcha Kelly overcame challenging icy conditions to take their first win of the season and the early championship lead.
Craig, who switched from international karting to rallying just last year said, “We’re both absolutely thrilled. It’s an incredible feeling, especially for me. To take a win so early in my career is just fantastic.”
His delight was compounded by the fact that the event hadn’t got off to a flying start. “The first stage was cancelled due to the snow and the second stage was shortened because of the bad weather again. When we got underway, I decided not to take any chances and that approach saw us move into third in class but 20 seconds off the lead.”
During the service interval Craig’s team made crucial alterations to the car’s set-up that would allow him to push the little C2R2 Citroen harder in the following stages. This he did, to great effect.
“On the third stage, I just got my head down and took 24 seconds out of my competitors which gave us a 4 second lead.”
Their bid for victory received a further boost when the crew in second place was forced to retire with fuel pump failure, effectively increasing Breen’s margin to 40 seconds. Not content with that, Craig decided to press home his advantage and attacked again on the remaining stages.
“We stayed fastest for the rest of the day and eventually took the win by over a minute from Vincent McAree. I think playing that safe card on stage two proved to be the right thing to do although, if I’d have pressed harder we could’ve been higher up in the rally’s overall standings (18th). Still, we did the job we set out to do, so I’m delighted that we achieved that.”
He added, “I’d just like to thank Sorcha and the team, who worked so hard to give us a great car with which to go out and win.”
Craig’s next round of the championship will be on 1 March, when he competes in the Carrick-on-Suir Forestry Rally.
Photo by: Trevor McGrath/Rallyprint
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