MacHale in hunt for inaugural ITC title

TITLE contenders in both the Citroen Irish Tarmac Championship and the Dulux Trade British Rally Championship face similar tasks on this weekend’s penultimate rounds of the series, that while featuring the same stages, headquarters and service halts, will run under two different names.

The complexity is due to a rule change and the top seeds in both championships will display the number one decals. There are just four seeded drivers (all in World Rally Cars) in the Todd’s Leap Ulster Rally, the remainder of the ITC brigade are seeded within the BRC category (Rally Northern Ireland), albeit still eligible to score both ITC and BRC points.

The intricacy of the situation is demonstrated by the fact that ITC leader, Alastair Fisher is seeded amongst the entry for Rally Northern Ireland while his title rival, Gareth MacHale heads the list in the Ulster Rally. Meanwhile, the top two seeds in Rally Northern Ireland are Gwyndaf Evans and Keith Cronin.