Eamon Boland wins the Circuit of Ireland

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John Dier & Karen O'Dowd

Tuesday 25th March

Following Eamon Boland's great performance over the weekend in the Circuit Of Ireland Rally, Karen O'Dowd put a few words together to relay the heroics of the Wexford driver to all who want to read about it. Her is her well written account of the rally.

Boland takes win on prestigious Circuit of Ireland International Rally.

Wexford man Eamon Boland with Damien Morrissey navigating has scored a memorable victory on the Circuit of Ireland International Rally. Eamon drove his recently acquired Subaru Impreza S12B to victory on the rally which ran over the three days of Easter weekend and is renouned for being a very long and tough event. Eamon has been a consistent top three finisher at international level and the opportunity to step on to the top level of the podium will surely be well celebrated. Eamon has had one previous win on the international circuit. That result was achieved on the Cork 20 Rally a number of years ago.

The first of the events 20 stages started on Good Friday afternoon and it was on this stage where the seeds were sown for Eamon and Damien’s eventual win. As most competitors know, a great physiological advantage can be gained by having the upper hand at the end of the first stage and on this occasion it was Eamon and Damien who held that advantage with a time 7 seconds quicker than their nearest rival, British champion Mark Higgins, driving a similar car to Eamon’s with Derek McGarrity, also in a Subaru 3rd. Gareth McHale, driving a Ford Focus WRC, held 4th, 42 seconds slower than Eamon. Eamon was to loose his lead briefly after stalling the car at a tight junction in the second stage but would regain the lead again when Mark Higgins retired shortly afterwards with transmission failure. It was a very happy crew of Eamon and Damien that would hold a 54 second lead over second placed Derek McGarrity at the end of the first days 4 stages. Tim McNulty was one second further back in 3rd and Gareth McHale a further 11 back in 4th.

Day 2 started dry and bright and Eamon’s aim now was to drive a calculated, no risk event, and try and hold on to his now substantial lead. Gareth McHale however took the first 2 stage wins of the morning, but by just fractions of a second from Eamon. This was how the event continued throughout the second morning, with Eamon putting in a good steady run and playing safe with his choice of types. Indeed with just one quickest stage time for the day, Eamon was quite happy to let the other crews chip away 2 or 3 seconds here and there from his lead. Things almost went completely wrong however on the final stage of the day when Eamon and Damien put their Subaru momentarily into a ditch and although there was only minor damage to the car, their lead was now down to just 26 seconds going into the Saturday night halt.

On the first of the Sunday stages however Eamon would reassert his intentions to not give up and put in a time 8 seconds faster than McHale to finish his lead back up to 34 seconds. The battle for the win was now firmly between Eamon and Damien in their Subaru and Gareth McHale and Craig Parry in a Focus, Gareth most probably remembering last September here in Wexford where he narrowly lost to Eamon on home ground and would surely be looking to reverse that result. To this end Gareth was to put in two blisteringly quick times on stages 18 and 19 and set up a grandstand finish with the gap from himself to Eamon now down to just 4 seconds with only one stage remaining. Could Eamon have been lulled into a false sense of security and now been caught napping? With tensions running high, crews set off into the final special stage of the event. After what was surely an anxious few minutes for everyone in both camps, Eamon and Damien emerged from stage 20 after putting in a time just 0.9 of a second faster than Gareth to take what had to be a well deserved victory for this long term partnership, by just 4.9 seconds after 3 days of tough rallying.

An indication of how dominant the crew were on the event would be the fact that they actually led the rally for 19 of the 20 special stages that they competed on over the weekend, only loosing that lead very briefly to mark Higgins on that stage 2. On top of this fabulous win the crew now also find themselves sitting on top of the points table in Irish Tarmac International Rally Championship. With the 15 points for the win here added to the 10 for his 3rd place on the recent Galway International Rally, he now sits top of the table on 25 with Tim McNulty 2nd on 22 and Gareth McHale 3rd on 16.

JD