New-look RT2000 unveiled at Night of Champions

THE new-look RT2000 car was unveiled at the Dunlop Night of Champions in Fitzpatrick’s Killiney Castle Hotel over the weekend.

The evening, which honoured the top drivers in Irish racing, was set in motion with the unveiling of the revised car that will compete in the renamed Dunlop Super Saloon Championship formerly known as the Dunlop RT2000 series.

The complete redesign has resulted in a much more modern shape along the Touring car lines. Series sponsors Dunlop also announced a significant number of changes to the popular saloon series that should increase the category's profile and popularity with both competitors and spectators alike.

A large front spoiler should help to improve the aerodynamics with Dunlop supplying a new control tyre to the championship with the change to radial tyres expected to make the cars quicker and more consistent over a full race distance. Richard Warbrick of Irish Dunlop opined "We believe that the changes to the look of the car, the new aerodynamic package and the new Dunlop radial tyre, will all contribute to the continuing growth in competitiveness and popularity of the class."

A series of initiatives that are being prepared for 2003 including an end of season prize drive, details of which will be announced shortly. News of additional changes to the 2003 championship package will also be announced in the coming weeks.

The championship, expanded to 16 races, starts in Mondello Park in April, and will be part of the Super Race Sunday packages at the County Kildare venue. The Dunlop Super Saloons will again star on the support package of the BTCC at Mondello Park, which this year will take place on the Easter weekend. The Donegal/Cork partnership of Shaun Gallagher and David Moynihan finished second in the front wheel drive category in the Mountain Rally in Norway. Throughout the two days that incorporated nine special stages, their Peugeot performed faultlessly.

The rally was won by Henning Solberg, his Mitsubishi Evo 6 was 22.2 seconds ahead of the Hyundai Accent WRC of Trond Sveinsvoll. Meanwhile, Eddie Peterson retained his lead of the Hewison Autotest Championship courtesy of a win and a second place in the double header at Waterford. In Saturday's trial in Ferrybank, the championship leader had 11.4 seconds to spare over the similar Mini Special of JJ Farrell with Eamonn Byrne taking third place some five seconds further adrift. Byrne led yesterday's round right from the start but was closely pursued by Peterson, who finished just 1.7 seconds behind. JJ Farrell was third. Incurring a 30 second penalty at the same location, "Bones" O'Connor/Paul Phelan (Subaru Impreza) and brothers, Ray and Stephen O'Neill were the top duo in the Cork 1000 Shakes Night Navigation Trial, a counting round of the National Navigation Trial Championship that was based at the Ballyvrena Community Centre on the Cork/Limerick border.

Multiple national champions, O'Connor/Phelan won by just six penalty points while second place for the O'Neill's was enough to give them the sole lead of the national series. The top two both collected 30 penalty points when they made a double visit to one time point on a "plot and bash section" near Ballylanders.

Third placed Pete Willoughby/Greg Shinnors, who were expected to challenge, lost time when they skipped a few time points. The Semi-Expert class was won by Donal Healy/Peter Keohane with Joe Shinnors (Junior) and Kieran Daly emerging victorious in the Novice class, they also finished a commendable sixth overall.

Of the 33 starters, there were nine retirements including Karl and Frank O'Donoghue (Peugeot). The event was also a counting round of the Senator Engineering Munster Navigation Trial Championship.