McElhinney Lifts the Citroen Racing Trophy Title
Donegal driver Adrian McElhinney has become the 2009 Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland winner, securing the title with a victory on the final round of the series, the second day of the Wexford Stages Rally. With co-driver Shane Buckley who took the co-driver’s title also, they brought their Citroen C2 R2 to the Wexford finish, to secure their awesome prizes, a new C2 R2 Max upgrade kit, from Citroen Sport, prize money and six free BF Goodrich rally tyres. “We decided this morning, the best way to make totally sure of the title was to go for it today, and we had a trouble free day, unlike yesterday. To win the series is just brilliant, and next year will be another step up for us driving the Max specification car. The team has worked hard all year, and our car has been the only one to finish all of the rounds, someway or other! Shane has also done a great job on the pace-notes. Honestly with me being from Donegal and Shane from Co. Kerry, I don’t what he is saying half the time, but once he starts reading the pace-notes it’s perfect!” Adrian’s main title rival Barry Evans took second place on both rounds, but that was by far the whole story of rounds six and seven of the Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland.
Round six, day one of the Wexford Stages Rally, and the big surprise was Tipperary’s Paul Manton, who stormed into the lead, with some very fast stage times. In the championship race, Barry Evans needed victory, and perhaps a little misfortune to strike championship leader McElhinney, and it actually had struck! “We were queuing up for the start line of the first stage, and I noticed the battery voltage reading very low” said Adrian. “It was getting very worrying, the screen went off on the dash-board, and we lost the power steering, as the battery started to drain. We lost minutes as Barry and Mark Kane both passed us on the stage. At the end of the first stage we disconnected everything we didn’t need and got to service and changed the alternator. It was just one of those days for us, on the second last stage on a tight right hander with a slight cut the car bottomed and the exhaust pulled off the front pipe, so there was a horrendous noise, then on the final stage the clutch cable snapped!” His eventual fourth place finish on round six was somewhat of a miracle and assured him of the title, barring any queries or anything over anyone’s times. Not so lucky were Martin Tynan, who once again retired with a broken drive-shaft, and John Quill who broke his engine mountings, both retiring on day one.
Mark Kane made a slow start by his own admission, and would eventually claim third on the opening day, although his car wasn’t picking up correctly. Second was Barry Evans, who made a real bid to keep his championship hopes alive. The Monaghan driver had a gearbox problem to report on the opening loop, and his service crew led by racing ace Jonny Fildes did a sterling job to put in a new gearbox in the time allowed. Barry was within 20 seconds of the leader with two tests to go, and decided to take a gamble on a harder compound of tyre, to really push for victory. It was a gamble that was worth the risk, but an over–shoot and stall ensured that he was sixteen seconds off the winning spot at the end of the day. Indeed it was Paul Manton who scored a well deserved victory at the end of the day in a faultless drive.
Day two, round seven, and once again the fast Wexford Stages were being enjoyed immensely by the C2 R2 crews. Once again it was Paul Manton on a charge, as he simply annihilated the opposition with a time 24 seconds faster than his nearest C2 R2 rival on the first test. But things took a turn for the worse on the second test, as Paul explains. “There was a 30 minute delay before the stage start, and I knew that the tyres would be cold. But I was just trying maybe a bit too hard, and just made a mistake on the fourth or fifth corner of the stage. We went up two banks and that was it, all over. I went from hero to zero in about 5 seconds!” With Paul out, Adrian McElhinney in contrast to day one had a trouble free day to take victory despite catching a few cars on stages, and on this rally he was also driving on his own pace-notes for the first time, in preparation for his trip to the Rally Antibes in France.
For Barry Evans again it was a hard fought second place, and second for the second year running in the championship, whilst Mark Kane’s C2 R2 went better on the final loop after a change of fuel pump, throttle hesitation problems having held him back, but third place also gave him third place in the Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland standings.
Exciting plans for next year’s Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland are already underway, and thanks to support from Total and Citroen Sport the competitors have once again enjoyed one of the best prize funds in Irish motorsport, and Adrian McElhinney from Donegal town the big prize winner. Adrian has also been selected by Citroen Sport to bring his newly built Citroen C2 R2 Max to the Rally Antibes, in the South of France on the 16th-18th October, for an end of season bonanza, where he is entitled to generous rewards from Citroen Sport. “The team have worked so hard between events to prepare the car correctly, and really it will be great to bring the service crew out somewhere different as well, hopefully with a bit of sunshine too, after all the effort they have put in this year.”
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