Top Marks: Mark Alcorn back on the pace after Galway win

When Mark Alcorn unclipped his helmet in the cockpit of his Mk2 Escort, his mind wandered back.

In his formative years in Gartan, Alcorn was bitten by the bug of rallying.

On Sunday, Alcorn came off the Ballydugan loop, SS15 of the Galway International Rally, as the winner of the national section. A place in the top ten of the overall standings outlined the impressive weekend by Alcorn, who had Councillor John O’Donnell calling the pace notes.

Glenswilly man Paul Gallagher was a regular visitor to the Alcorn home.

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“Paul would have the car parked outside my window,” Alcorn remembers. 

“Paul was out with our ones a lot. Back then, you could just drive the rally car around. It wasn’t long before I got into rallying.”

He hired a Sunbeam from Victor Hunter and, with Raymond Scott as navigator at first, he began to compete.

Kevin ‘Kiki’ McCafferty was recruited soon after and the pair struck a formidable partnership.

“It was full attack after that,” Alcorn says.

In a Toyota Corolla Twin Cam, Alcorn and McCafferty topped their class at the Donegal Harvest Stages Rally, based out of Donegal Town.

In more recent years, he hasn’t been as active.

At the Donegal International Rally in 2018, the pair were pushing hard in the Mk2 Escort when disaster struck. 

Of all places, they were at the Gartan stage. Home tar.

“I lost a lot of confidence at that time after Donegal,” Alcorn says. “Kevin decided after we had an accident that he wasn’t going to come back. He’d been my navigator pretty much from day one.

“My whole confidence definitely went a step back after that day.

“The navigator is so, so important. You need to find someone you trust, someone on your level. You could have the best navigator in Ireland, but you just might not be compatible.  

“Someone might just do something a small bit different, but that’s out of place with how you want it to go. Everyone has their own type of navigator and I’ve been very lucky to have had James (McNulty) and John O’Donnell in the last year. Those two boys helped me massively. Even just from helping to make me feel comfortable in the car again.” 

In 2018, a chicane of hay bales on the Gartan stage proved a big moment.

“We had no brakes going into that stage,” Alcorn says. “The axel was welded and we just couldn’t break or it would break the whole thing. It was Saturday afternoon and going onto Gartan. The fact it was there was a big thing too. Everyone was out to see us. The car just went straight into the chicane and that was that.” 

On the return of the Donegal International last June, following a hiatus since 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Acorn delivered a reminder of his talents behind the wheel. 

In finishing 14th overall, Alcorn recorded some times that were right in the mix with the leading crews.

His red Escort was the third quickest car overall on Gartan and he was the sharpest of the modified men on both runs of the stage.

“I was thinking on Mammy the whole way around it,” Alcorn told Donegal Live at the time, remembering his mother, Margaret Noel, who died last February. “She’d have been delighted to see us come around the (Lough) Akibbon with the quick times.”

It was clear then that Alcorn’s confidence - and pace - was back,

“Everything went well for us in Donegal,” he says. “The pace just came up and that really pushed me on. The pace is definitely there now. I feel comfortable in the car. I didn’t really think about pace at the weekend or worry about the leaderboard at all - it was just about getting the finish.

“I’m delighted to get that pace back in the car again.”

In stepping up to a 2.5-litre engine from a 2-litre, Alcorn has taken a significant move.

Alcorn and O'Donnell were supported by a solid crew. Alcorn says he'd be 'lost' without the input of Gerard McGrenra, his cousin. Oters, too, like Sean O'Donnell, JP Boyle, Ryan Gormley, Enda McCormick and Liam Doherty, were invaluable.

Bobby Sharkey had the Escort 'flawless' and Alcorn is indebted to the financial support from Ronan Hilferty of Ronhill Ltd.

The weekend was also a touch poignant as it was at the 2009 Galway International where Gallagher - who drove the car that initially planted a rallying seed in Gallagher’s mind - suffered life-changing injuries. 

Acorn doesn’t do much testing in the car, but takes an on-hands role in preparing the machine.

His belief was clear at the weekend as he arrived off the first stage, Cordwood. Killian Duffy, conducting brief interviews at stage end, was almost in disbelief at the time he’d been given. From the navigator’s seat, O’Donnell made it clear that there was no mistake. Alcorn was firmly on pace.  

By the weekend’s close, they had one minute and seven seconds to spare on the Starlet of Jason Black.

“We were over the moon,” he says. 

“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.”

Donegal remains in the focus and the Midlands Rally is their next mission.