Moffett gearing up in bid to emulate brother’s hat-trick

Monaghan’s Josh Moffett is ramping up his bid to win three Irish rally championships in one season, just as his older brother Sam did last year, writes Martin Walsh

While Sam is the only driver that can deny him the Tarmac title, Josh’s fate in the other championships is more complex.

First up tomorrow is the penultimate round of the Valvoline Irish Forest Rally Championship, the Enniskillen Trailer Parts & Spares Lakeland Rally, which also counts towards the McGrady Insurance Northern Ireland Rally Championship.

With dropped scores taken into consideration, Moffett is just a point ahead of fellow Monaghan driver Barry McKenna (Ford Fiesta R5) and Waterford’s Andrew Purcell. Between them, they have won all six rounds, but on the last round in Cork, Purcell struggled to stay with his rivals who ran their Fiesta’s with the R5+ kits. McKenna has scored highly in all rounds and that gives him some degree of latitude, as Moffett and Purcell cannot afford to have a non-finish.

Yet, that won’t deter them from pushing to the limit over the forest terrain.

Meanwhile, Antrim’s Derek McGarrity has an ex-works Ford Focus WRC at his disposal and could clinch an eighth Northern Ireland title. The rest of the top-10 seeds — Adrian Hetherington (Toyota Corolla WRC), Cathan McCourt (Ford Fiesta R5), Stephen McCann (Ford Fiesta R5), Patrick O’Brien (Mitsubishi Evo), Vivian Hamill (Ford Fiesta R5) and Alan Smyth (Mitsubishi Evo) are more associated with the Valvoline series. A late entry from Kenny McKinstry (Subaru WRC) spices up the NI series. Action begins in Enniskillen at 10.30am.

On Sunday, the re-scheduled FAAC Simply automatic/Sligo Park Hotel Rally will have Moffett renewing his battle with Donegal’s Declan Boyle in round five of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship. Top seed Sam Moffett (Fiesta R5) makes his first outing in this year’s Triton campaign, but won’t be registering for championship points that will be the domain for Boyle and Josh Moffett.

While Boyle has an 18-point lead, the dropped score rule leaves them inseparable. As with his Forest championship bid, Moffett cannot afford to have a poor finish, as he has already missed one event, that effectively counts as his dropped round. For the last rounds in Clonmel, the two championship rivals increased the power output of the cars and ran in Class 20 (non-homologated) rather than the usual Class 7.

The Sligo entry of just fewer than 100 crews is about 15 down on what was due to start in July, until the heatwave brought a double cancelation.

Meanwhile, it was on a request from Motorsport Ireland and the Triton Championship committee that Sunday’s date was procured. Triton regulars Joe McGonigle (Mini WRC) and Niall Maguire (Subaru WRC) fill the top five places in Sligo.

Elsewhere, the quest for the rally.ie award (top two-wheel drive competitor) brings Donegal’s Stuart Darcy (Darrian T90) and Cavan’s Chris Armstrong (Ford Escort) into direct combat. In recent events, Armstrong lost out on the closing stages and has to overturn the process on Sunday’s nine stages, the first of which begins at 10.38am.