Eamonn Kelly’s eye on progress after WRC debut

Eamonn Kelly will pore over the content from his World Rally debut in the next nine weeks before he takes on the Croatia Rally.

The Frosses man is a strong believer in analysis. The 24-year-old will look at every detail in a bid to make up the small percentages.

Kelly was the winner of the Billy Coleman Award in 2022 and is tackling the FIA Junior WRC Series this year.

The ice and snow of Rally Sweden delivered a harsh reminder to Kelly of how this sport is fraught with obstacles. Kelly and Conor Mohan, his navigator, came back from a big accident on Friday evening in their Fiesta Rally 3 but a broken wishbone on Sunday ended their involvement.

“It is very easy to say unlucky or it was just a mistake when you’re at that level, but when you’re try to get the top pace you have to understand why things happen,” Kelly told Donegal Live.

“That’s only because I want progress. I know I can be quicker so I want to make everything else right. I want it so much and I don’t want to wait for something to happen again before I realise that I need to do something.

"When you’re in the car, if it goes right or wrong, you’re always learning. You’re creating either positive or negative reactions and I always want to see why that is.”

Kelly won the Junior British Rally Championship last year and netted €100,000 worth of support to contest rallies nationally and internationally in 2023.

Kelly, a son of former Irish Tarmac champion Donagh Kelly, works with Alan Heary on sports psychology as part of the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy.

“This week’s will be very beneficial,” Kelly says. “It makes a huge difference to get the head in the right place.

"I do a session with Alan before and after every event.

“There are plenty of things I let get to me in Sweden and I should’ve been in a better mental position. Look, it’s all learning, but If you can get a strong mindset and you believe it, it’s a game changer.

“I want to do everything possible and get a good, solid performance in Croatia. The preparation starts now.”

Kelly clocked some impressive stage times in Sweden. Even in the remote snow-capped roads in Scandinavia, home wasn’t far away.

“It was absolutely class to see Donegal flags on the stages - and it was just the one,” he says.

“That was definitely very encouraging.”

The Donegal man says the experience of competing among the world’s best was ‘amazing’.

“I grew up watching it and now I’m in the middle of it,” he says. “It really lived up to its potential. Being around that service area and an environment with all those professional teams. Everything from the stages to the atmosphere to the fans was unbelievable.

“In one sense, you get so focussed on what you’re doing that you don’t have time to digest what’s around you. There’s always something to be doing and you don’t have much free time. There are a lot of eyes on you and it’s hard to hide from it.”

Rally Sweden is the only event on the WRC calendar to take place entirely on snow and ice.
At the Arctic Lapland Rally last month, Kelly finished 18th overall and was fifth in the SM2 category.

“I wanted to give myself as much preparation as possible,” Kelly says. “As soon as I knew I was going to this rally, I wanted good prep because I never competed on snow before.

“We did the Arctic and then a small test in Sweden. The Arctic Rally was brilliant for me and I got 240km under my belt. Seat time is everything and a new surface always comes with complications.”

The early stages heightened confidence in the cockpit of the Fiesta - perhaps too much.
Kelly felt that he wasn’t at his full potential, even though he was perhaps further up the leaderboard than he’d anticipated.

“When you’re pushing and getting quicker, it can be easy to get carried away,” he says. “Guys are at such a high pace, you could be getting quicker beyond what you’re used to - but when you’re getting closer, you want to keep getting closer.

“We made a small mistake on a corner, we just misjudged the speed and line of the corner and had a massive accident. We got back out again, got the car fixed - the damage was only cosmetic - and got out again on Super Rally. On the first stage on Sunday, we got stuck in a snowbank and a massive boulder grazed off the car, breaking the wishbone.

“We just have to learn from those moments and make sure they don’t happen again. it’s very encouraging to be racing these guys with a lot more experience. It gives confidence and motivation.

“We’ll learn a lot as we go on. At the weekend, I definitely learned that speed isn’t everything. There’s stuff to put right. I’ll put it all down on paper and move on.”