Merry Christmas, rally fans.

It seems an odd time of year that we are looking forward to a rally, but such is the generosity of Motorsport Ireland that we are now looking to the second rally in Wexford this year.

After a long absence, we see the return of a single stage to County Wexford for the first time in what must be eleven or twelve years.

As a bit of history, I navigated in that said rally - it was based in Ballinaboola in early April.

After a couple of day's preperation on the car, Pat Dunne and myself toddled the fifteen or so miles to Ballinaboola for scrutineering.

This is where the fun started.

Having spent a night or two cannabilising a broken kids' phone set, and rigging it up to the PA side of a CB radio, I had made an intercom set which actually worked.

I then sat down and carefully stitchd the microphones and headphones into our helmets.

lo and behold, when scrutineering came, we found our helmets had lost their approval since January.

All was not lost - who turned up but today's number one seed David James, only to say that he had his last two approved helmets for sale in his van.

Imagine the scramble to get the set-up from one set of helmets to another.

Yes, we did it, and actually managed to finish the rally in a half-decent position.

The day was ironically to spell the near end of single stage rallys, and for that matter, it nearly killed rallying altogether.

In another single stage rally near Skibbereen, Co Cork, that same day, a father and two children died when crossing a rally stage on the blind side of a yump, and also on a worldwide scale, that day also the death of Henri Toivinen when his car went over a cliff in Corsica.

This was one of the very few fatalities in world rallying, and it was so unforunate that these two incidents hapened on the same day.

All these years down the line, we are now seeing rallying in a very healthy state, and single stage rallys are back on the calendar.

So, to today's rally - this site will give you all the information you need, and i'll add that this rally will end on a spectacular note, the details of which, I have beem privy to, but sworn to secrecy.

To find out further, get down here by mid-afternoon as it gets dark, when all will be revealed.

But then, having said that, a very large brown envelope might make me spill the beans, but hey, would I get time off work for the Moriarty Tribunal?

I don't think so.