What to expect from Irish Tarmac’s expanded second round

Saint Patrick’s Day weekend in the Irish town of Clonakilty means only one thing: it’s time to go rallying.

The 44th edition of the West Cork Rally gets underway today, with round two of the Irish Tarmac Championship set to take place on the beautiful coastal roads and countryside lanes in the west of the Irish county of Cork. With a huge entry list of Rally2 machines, classic cars and crazy modifieds, West Cork is sure to deliver a spectacle for fans who will pack out the stages in their droves.

And on top of that, for the first time ever, the rally will be held over three days instead of two, with the addition of two loops of stages on Friday, the latter of which will be run at night.

So, how has the 2024 edition of the West Cork become the biggest edition in the event’s long history? West Cork Rally press officer Kevin O’Driscoll explains.

“We had to go to Congress to get the approval for the usual dates,” the 20-year West Cork veteran told DirtFish, “and we tried to play for the third day, just to see whether we would get approval for it. It was an ambitious move, it still is, probably. But we thought it’s definitely worth trying.

“The approval had to go through several stages – Congress, the guys in Clonakilty, the West Cork Rally Committee, and the Cork Motor Club directors – but thankfully we got agreements on all sides, so we went ahead and put it out there [to our stakeholders].

“While we were given the dates, it didn’t necessarily mean that we were going to [extend the rally to three days] if the stakeholders weren’t completely happy about it, but everybody was on board.

“It’s an interesting idea, with the night stages and stuff like that. But one of the things that has been said to me is that a lot of younger [Irish] drivers are going to Europe now, and night stages are part of it over there, so, why not here?”

With the additional Friday stages locked in, it was now down to the competitors to vote with their feet, and their wheels. But would they have the appetite for a whole extra day of rallying on the West Cork?

The answer was clear: Yes, absolutely.

This weekend’s rally will feature a bumper 165-car entry list, up six cars from last year, and with plenty of fresh faces in the field.

“I think about 30 drivers out there are doing it for the first time,” confirms O’Driscoll, “which is a large representation. There’s very good UK representation, we have drivers from Barbados, co-drivers from Singapore, a few from America, and all the British Isles, so we’ve got it all covered.”

Topping the entry list is defending event winner Josh Moffett, who has traded his trusty Hyundai i20 for a Citroën C3 Rally2 this season. But to defend his West Cork crown, he’ll have to go through reigning ITRC champion Callum Devine, as well as British Rally Championship stars Keith Cronin – who won the ITRC season-opener in Galway last month – and Matt Edwards, who needs a good result to get his season back on track after his Ford Fiesta found trouble in Galway.

Adding yet more intrigue to this weekend’s action is the visit of Junior WRC champion Will Creighton, who’ll use the event in his homeland as preparation for his upcoming WRC2 outing on April’s Croatia Rally.

And as ever in the ITRC, the plethora of Rally2s will be supplemented by an eye-catching range of machines in the historic and modified classes, with the latter featuring the world’s fastest Ford Escort Mk2s, complete with sequential gearboxes and packing over 400 bhp from their 2.5-liter Millington engines.

Speaking of eye-catching, the waterfront scenery is one of the aspects that make the West Cork Rally stand out. But the seaside stages, which include the famous Ring stage along the Clonakilty coastline, aren’t just about stunning views – they’ll play a critical role in deciding this weekend’s winner, as O’Driscoll explains.

“Only half the stages will be coastal, but there’s always very good grip on the stages, they’re very technical, fast in places, but not motorway-fast, so there is work to be done on all of them.

“Then you have some more inland stages like Sands Cross and a bit more upland territory, farmlands, that kind of thing. But around the coast, it does tend to dry off pretty quickly when there’s rain. I know of two occasions in the last 10 years where we’ve literally had a storm for a couple of stages, and it just boggled it down, and it cured away again in no time, but it’s just, just for a couple of stages. It’s just one of these coastal things, the rain rolls in, it does what it has to do, and it goes again.”

With rain set to play a factor this weekend, tire choices and judging the grip levels in mixed conditions will be key to success on the West Cork. But despite this fact, the rally is typically an event where newcomers can go well, and the experienced hands have less of an advantage.

“The stages are good, there’s a bit of everything for everyone,” says O’Driscoll. “There’s some wide sections, there’s some narrow sections, there’s coastal ones, the classic ones everyone hears about – Ring, Hartfield, and we’re using Glendore this year as well, which we haven’t for 10 years, so that’s a really nice stage.

“There’s two stages that haven’t been used for a long time, and parts of others that haven’t been used in 15, 20 years. There’s lots of roads there that can be used [in the region], and we’re always using bits and pieces [of new roads], and we turn them backwards, so there’s nothing exactly the same as last year.

“It’s the kind of event where a first-timer who’s brave can come down and really probably go and show off, it’s not a place that you have to learn all about and win because you know it off by heart. A guy can come down and be really, really competitive on his first go here.”

And there’s one driver in particular that won in his first West Cork start that sticks in O’Driscoll’s mind.

“Craig [Breen] won the rally in 2019; he’d never done West Cork until that year, so it is  a place where you don’t have to be an expert. Obviously a bit of bravery will go a long way, like any rally. It’s a rally that you can come and be competitive on out of the box because the technicality of the stages means that you have to work a bit, and if your notes are good, then you’ll be rewarded.”

The West Cork Rally action begins at 16:28 local time this afternoon, and concludes in Clonakilty on Sunday after 158 miles of action across 18 stages.