CORK MOTOR CLUB

Cork Motor Club's general meeting of Tuesday, May 20th, 2014, discussed the recent club Survey and the members have decided to change the schedule of club meetings.

Starting straight away, club meetings will now be held on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. This will include any months with five Tuesdays. Next meeting will therefore be next Tuesday, May 27. Our June meetings will be on Tuesday 10th and 24th. In July we will meet on Tuesday 8th and 22nd. The decision mirrored the Survey, where 52% of responses suggested fortnightly meetings.

A good discussion was held on how to improve the club for members (new and old) and a lot of positive ideas were put forward that would encourage new members to get more involved. Volunteers will now work on putting these suggestions into practice and a schedule of new events, both social and informative, will be announced later. Any other suggestions from club members who were unable to get to Tuesday's meeting are still welcome.

Its ben a busy few weeks for CMC members, competing in three different events across three rally championships from Killarney to Glendalough via Carlow…..

The Cartell.ie Killarney international Rally of the Lakes took place over the recent May bank holiday weekend. A number of CMC members enjoyed a fantastic weekend’s motorsport down in the Kingdom with some fantastic results achieved .

In the National section, James O’Brien guided Clonmel’s Roy White home to a superb 1^st O/A in their screaming 2.5 engined MG ZR 4x4. Roy and James emerged the victors after a tremendous weekend long battle with Wesley Patterson and Johnny Baird. Only 33 seconds separated the two crews after 15 gruelling stages in the mountains of Kerry and West Cork.

In Class 9, CMCs Liam Fouhy navigated Shane Stanley home to a giant killing 22^nd O/A and 2^nd in class in their little 1400cc Honda Civic. A remarkable result for this young crew, who are consistently proving themselves to be class contenders.

Class 15 saw the all CMC crew of Alan O’Riordan and Jimmy Jordan bring home 2^nd in class in their GC8 Subaru Impreza.

In the Junior section, Inchigeela man Eamonn Creedon navigated Cathal McCarthy’s Honda Civic to finish 5^th O/A and 2^nd in class. Christy McCarthy brought his trusty Peugeot 205 home to a fine 6^th O/A and 3^rd in class.

As always CMC were well represented both on and off the stages for the weekend. CMC timing guru John Harrington and his team provided our state of the art live timing system to KDMC for the duration of the event. This was a mammoth task both from a logistical and organisational front, with John and the team taking it all in their strides. On the Junctions and Stage Locations dotted throughout Kerry and Cork the CMC marshalling crew turned out in force once more. Thank you to everyone who turned out and represented the club.

The following weekend saw the action move to The Carlow Stages Rally, round 3 of the Dunlop National Rally Championship. Once again CMC crews were out in force in the midlands.

For the second weekend in a row James O’Brien sampled the Champaign finishing 3^rd O/A in the hotseat for Roy White, capping off a tremendous 10 days for the pair in the MG ZR.

CMC’s Stephen Quin guided 2013 National Forest Champion Mick O’Brien home to 1^st in class 8 and a fine 5^th O/A in the O’Brien Plant Hire Ford Focus WRC.

All CMC crew of Ed Colton with club chair, Claire O’Mahony  calling the notes, brought their Mitsubishi Evo 6 home to a fine 43^rd O/A and 3^rd in class 20.

Johnny Curran brought his class 13 MK2 Escort home to 28^th O/A.  Conan O’Riordan claimed 74^th overall in his class 10 Peugeot 205. Jill White guided Dermot O’Riordan home to 76^th O/A in the class 11 Honda Civic. Donal O’Brien rounded out the day for CMC finishing 84^th O/A in the class 13 Escort G4 after disastrous opening loop of stages. Donal got the car back to service after stage 3 where repairs were made and the crew went on to set some very impressive times on the remaining 6 stages.

The stunning backdrop of Glendalough played host to The ALMC’s Forest Mini Stage Rally last weekend. The event was round 3 of the Valvoline National Forest Rally Championship with CMC crews once more out in force enjoying the gravel action.

CMC topgun Owen Murphy takes 1^st O/A with James O’Brien concluding a most memorable 3 weekends in a row on the podium. Owen and James claimed a start to finish victory in the Wicklow hills in the Hankook backed Mitsubishi Evo 9. This valuable victory now moves Owen and James to 2^nd in the championship standings behind Monaghan’s Josh Moffett.

In class 1, Johnny Kenneally had to settle for 2^nd in class after leading the class on the opening stage. A broken shock absorber slowed the crew on stage 2 and following repairs in service the crew came back out fighting. The deficit due to the early time loss proved to be too great and Johnny brought the Suzuki engined MK2 home in 2^nd.

Class 2 saw CMC father and son crew, Tim and DJ Howard bring their trusty 1600 8v Nova home 3^rd in class.

Class 3 was so near yet so far for CMC crew Ian McCarthy with Vincent Goggin on the notes, bringing their Honda Civic home 4^th in class and 31^st O/A .

Class 4 proved to be another good day out for Mick “the warrior” O’Sullivan who took a fine 2^nd in class and 20^th overall in the Pinto powered Mk2.

                                        Full event report CLICK HERE             

                    Results for the rally are available to view or download from HERE

After a discussion by club members at a meeting on Tuesday November 3, many changes to the rules and regulations for CMC's 2014 club championship were suggested. After discussion the final list of championship regulations for 2014 was agreed and passed at our November 10 meeting.  See 2014 club championship regulations Here