Green light for 2001 Wexford Rally
Rally Report 2
Wednesday, August 15 2001
Will Downing

A decisive meeting held by Wexford Motor Club on Tuesday night finally allayed the last remaining fears regards FMD from local landowners, who have expressed their delight in giving the rally their usual full support.

The scaled-down event will see a start list made up exclusively of Irish entrants – including those from Northern Ireland - which should see large interest from those involved in the clubman circuit.

Saturday’s racing will consist of one solitary stage traversed twice in the Ballinaboola area, while Sunday’s climax will see the field circuiting three stages three times – Murrintown, Duncormick and Forth Mountain - giving a total of eleven stages over the weekend.

To add extra spice to the mix, there will be no reccie run of any of the stages, but each route will have its own individual familiarisation run.

The service areas will be located at Ballinaboola on Saturday, and in the Whitford House/Rosslare Roundabout area on Sunday.

The first full-scale rally to be staged since the end of the FMD red alert saw many thousands take to the highways and byways of Tipperary for the Stonethrowers Rally last weekend, where Donegal’s Paul Harris beat Wexford’s Eamonn Boland into second.

This could prove to be one of the key battles of this year’s event, should both men decide to compete.

Driving a Sunbeam, Harris got the better of the Wexfordian’s Sierra in a classic clash in the Wexford in the early nineties – only for both men to be superseded by Stephen Murphy.

For the first time, application forms for the Wexford Rally will be downloadable from the event’s official website - wexfordrally.tripod.com.