Fuelled by the past, driving to the future: 2022 Donegal Rally launched

Pointers to the past were plentiful on Friday night as the 2022 Joule Donegal International Rally was launched.

It is fifty years now since the first Donegal International was staged in 1972. The rally headquarters for the ’72 event was the Rosapenna Hotel.

There was a real throwback as the official launch of the 2022 Donegal International went to the Rosapenna Golf Resort.

Some 161 competitors will go off the start ramp on Friday, June 17, to embark on 20 of the most iconic stages in the world. Over 300km of stage mileage will test them to their limits as the Donegal International returns from its Covid-19 hiatus.

“It was way beyond expectations actually,” long-standing Donegal Motor Club member Jim Callaghan recalled of that first event, organised on the back of a successful Rally of the Rosses in 1971. “The event went from strength to strength really.

“The crowds were phenomenal that first year. It was an absolutely fantastic weekend and there was a lot of excitement in Downings.”

Some of the team behind the Rally enjoying the launch

Seamus Kernan, another of the founder members recalled 132 crews starting out in 1972. “Rallying was big in Donegal in those days,” he told a huge attendance on Friday night.

Phonsie McElwee, the local undertaker, was the first secretary of the event.

“We had marshalled on the Circuit of Ireland and we thought we could run one ourselves,” he said, “We were all together at the time doing our best to get motorsport into Donegal."

The likes of Austin Frazer, Harry Johnston, Robert Ward and Derek McMahon, PJ Willhaire and Ernest Stewart were other central figures. The support of the Sheephaven Festival committee was crucial and McElwee recalled ‘pestering’ Irish motorsport chiefs to obtain international status for the event.

Frazer and Curley two names that helped create the Donegal Rally, the next generation carrying on the torch

“You have to admire their initiative in going for international status in the early stages,” Letterkenny navigator Rory Kennedy, a four-time winner, said.

“It’s great to come here and meet all the people who put this rally on the map.”

Achim Warmbold won two events in the 1973 World Rally Championship - Poland and Austria - and won the 1975 Donegal International.

Iconic Finland driver Ari Vatanen, a future world champion in 1981, won here in 1978 in an RS1800 Ford Escort.

Vatanan will be back in two weeks’ time.

In one of the add-ons this year, in celebration of the 50th anniversary, some of the former winners will blast through the Glen and Atlantic Drive stages on the third day of the event, Sunday, June 19.

Ari Vatanen, Cahal Curley, Andrew Nesbitt, Vincent Bonner, John Lyons, Austin MacHale, Billy Coleman, James Cullen and Donall Barrett have amassed 24 wins between them.

Nesbitt corked the champagne more than anyone - six times - and the winners’ list also includes five-time British Rally champion Jimmy McRae.

The late, great Bertie Fisher won four times.

The late, great Manus Kelly won three times before he was tragically killed on the last running of the event in 2019.

The presence of the S12B Impreza in which Kelly won in 2016, 2017 and 2018 at Friday’s launch added a touch of poignancy to the night.

A special car in a special place! Manus Kelly's three time winning car

“This is the first rally since 2019 and the tragic circumstances with Manus,” Kennedy said. “I think it was no harm that we had no rally for the last couple of years. That time allowed us to reflect, look back and come to terms with what happened.

“If Manus were here, he would tell us to get ‘flat out’ again.”

This year’s Joule Donegal International Rally is round five of the Ace Signs Irish Tarmac Championship with all of the leading protagonists set to tackle Donegal’s famous tar.

Sam Moffett might have stepped back from full-time competition, but the Monaghan man will be back in an attempt to retain his crown.

Matt Edwards, a triple British champion, is seeded at number five and will be among those fighting to wrestle Moffett’s grasp.

Callum Devine, Josh Moffett, Alastair Fisher, Cathan McCourt, Merion Evans, Declan Boyle and Garry Jennings might well have a say in matters, too.

Gareth MacHale, the winner in 2009 and 2019, is back alongside Brian Murphy in a VW Polo GTi R5.

Local favourites like Eamonn Kelly, Joe McGonigle, Damien Tourish and Kevin Gallagher are all in the top 20 entries, as is Ardara’s Declan Gallagher, the ‘Milkman’ set to go in the famed Toyota Starlet.

Curley, the winner of the first three Donegal Internationals, urged peopled to back the event. “It is an absolutely super event.” He said. “The stages are absolutely unique. I rallied all over the UK and in Belgium; nothing in my experience can touch Donegal.”

Clerk of the Course Eamon McGee acknowledged that 2019 left organisers ‘very low’.

“We needed that two years to regroup and get back,” he said.

“It’s always a challenge no matter what way we run it in Donegal. It’s a good challenge and it’s well taken up by these drivers - some of them are the best in Europe.  There is not an event in Europe that’ll take 210 cars - and that’s what we have out.”

The sheer vastness of the Donegal International - the only three-day rally left in the Irish rallying calendar - is shown by the Saturday, which has 230 marshals on duty.

“The crowd here is a huge vote of confidence,” Brian Brogan, the Chairman of the Donegal Motor Club, said. “We are here to celebrate the founder members and for the work they did to take it to international level. It’s our job now to keep it at International level.”