CRONIN FINISHES TROUBLED SEVENTH AT BRC OPENER

The opening round of the 2024 Probite Brakes British Rally Championship, the North West Stages Rally in Lancashire, has brought victory to English driver, Chris Ingram, and his American co-driver Alex Kihurani.  They finished the event in their Volkswagen Polo GTi with a margin of 27 seconds over William Creighton and Liam Regan in the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy Ford Fiesta Rally 2.  Meirion Evans and Jonathan Jackson rounded out the top three on their first outing in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally 2.  Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin eventually finished seventh in the M O’Brien Group of Companies/Lyons Motor Group/Shane Casey Electrical Services Ford Fiesta Rally 2 following a less than smooth event for the former winners of the British championship.

The Cork-Kerry pairing were second fastest on the opening stage of the rally, six seconds down on Ingram and Kihurani, with Osian Pryce and Rhodri Evans third, 5.8 seconds further back.  The second stage of the morning saw Cronin and Galvin pick up a puncture, and worse was to come on the following test when their Fiesta broke a driveshaft.  The organisers of the rally then took the decision to cancel stages four and five, following a number of accident-related stoppages during the course of the morning which caused running to be delayed, as a result of which some crews seeded down the field got no competitive mileage at all.  This turn of events was somewhat fortuitous for Cronin and Galvin, who had intended to nurse their car through to the mid-rally Service.  Their time loss would have been compounded if the tests had been run competitively, but the cancellations limited the impact.  The Fiesta was attended to by the Tom Gahan Motorsport mechanics, but stage six, Beacon Fell, the first of the second loop, saw Cronin and Galvin encounter further difficulties.  The Fiesta’s launch control did not function, they spun in the stage, and the handbrake was also causing problems.  To add to their woes, the weather for the afternoon loop turned much wetter, when they had gambled on cut slick dry weather tyres.

That same stage saw Pryce record the fastest time in his Fiesta, taking 14.2 seconds out of Ingram, to leave the overall gap at just 3.6 seconds.  The fightback came to an end however on the very next test when Pryce had to retire with mechanical maladies.  Creighton and Evans were promoted into the podium positions, and the order remained unchanged thereafter.

“It was just one of those rallies”, said Cronin at the finish of the final stage.  “We made a wrong tyre choice in the morning, and we were a bit braver for the second part of the day, but we were completely wrong, we were on slicks pretty much for that rain, so it was not enjoyable.  We were missing the handbrake as well, so we had to reverse in some of the hairpins.”

The attention of the Killarney and District Motor Club crew now turns back to the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, which resumes with the Circuit of Ireland next Saturday, based around Dungannon.

Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin are supported by M O’Brien Group of Companies, Lyons Motor Group, Shane Casey Electrical Services, Molson Equipment, Pirelli, EARS Motorsport Ireland, Cronin’s Centra (Ballylickey, Union Hall, Leap, Millstreet and Dundrum), Cronin’s HomeValue Hardware, Westlink Service Station and Daybreak Shop, Cremin Coaches, Keohane Seafoods, M-Sport and Wurth Ireland.

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Motorsport Photography.