Mark Alcorn takes impressive win of National Rally in Galway

Mark Alcorn was an impressive winner of the modified section of the Galway International Rally at the weekends.

In the Mk2 Escort, Alcorn, with Councillor John O'Donnell on the notes, had one minute and seven seconds to spare.

The Termon duo were on the pace over the two days of action in the 2023 Irish Tarmac Championship opener.

“We have a plan in place.” Alcorn said. “We'll go into the national championship and do all the rounds there. It has started off well anyway.

“We decided to try and win a national somewhere – and we done it early.”

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Alcorn showed some real promise on the time sheets at last summer's Donegal International Rally and he laid down a fine marker on Sunday, closing with 67 seconds to spare on the Starlet of Jason Black.

O'Donnell switched from driver's seat to navigator's for the weekend and Alcorn, now supported by Ronhill Ltd, was thrilled to come out on top.

Alcorn said: “We are over the moon. We managed to stretch out a bit of a lead.

“We were a bit nervous for the last stage. We knew that we had over a minute so we tried to drive a wee bit easier.

“We almost had a couple of moments so I just decided to drive the way I was and we were the quickest.”

Niall Burns called the notes for fourth-placed Jonathan Grier and the all-Donegal pair of Donegal Town's David Kelly and Convoy's Dean O'Sullivan were eighth in a Citroen C3 Rally 2.

Carndonagh's Aaron McLaughlin with Redcastle's Darren Curran navigating were 14th overall in the Fiesta R5.

Brian Brogan and Michael O'Donnell were second in class 14 and 23rd overall in the Escort.

The Bustards, Trevor and Kenny, ended second in class 15 in an Evo 9 with Joseph Kelly from Mountcharles third in the RC4 class in his 208 Peugeot.