Black and Egan power to Thomond Rally victory

Armagh's Jason Black (Toyota Starlet) and co-driver Karl Egan took a final stage victory in the Rathkeale-based Thomond Rally. Picture: Martin Walsh.

Armagh's Jason Black (Toyota Starlet) and his co-driver Karl Egan powered their way to a dramatic final stage victory in the Rathkeale-based Thomond Rally, where they finished a mere two seconds ahead of Wexford's James Stafford/Richard Cleary (Darrian T90 GTR), who were a late entry for the six-stage event. 

The Monaghan/Cavan pairing of Johno Doogan/Paul Lennon (Ford Escort) were a distant third.

Stafford was best on the opening test, where he was 4.9s ahead of Monaghan's Johno Doogan, who reckoned he was braking a little late and made some silly errors. 

Another late entry, Armagh's Marty Toner slotted his Proton Satria into third spot 7.5 off the lead and a mere 0.1s ahead of the Toyota Starlet of fellow Armagh driver Jason Black. 

Elsewhere, Meath's Michael Cahill (Escort) had brake issues while Tyrone's Frank Kelly lost time at the very first junction. 

Toner crashed on the second stage, which was neutralised with all the competitors credited with the same time. Rally leader Stafford had problems with the paddle shift.

On SS3, a repeat of SS1, Black had an impressive run and slotted into second place - 5.5s behind rally leader Stafford. Doogan and Cahill followed.

A strong performance on SS4 saw Stafford establish a 7s lead over Black with Doogan all of 25.4s adrift in third place. Donoughmore's Kenneth Cullinane (Darrian T90 GTR) occupied fourth.

Having beaten Stafford on SS3, Black was expected to cut the 7s deficit on the final run of the stage (SS5), however, Stafford actually increased his advantage to 8.7s, making Black's chances of victory more difficult as he declared: "Not much we can do about it now." 

Doogan remained in third from Cullinane and Frank Kelly. The chase for fourth was covered by a 5s blanket with Michael Cahill (Ford Escort) also in contention for the spot. 

In a dramatic final stage, Black threw caution to the wind and eked out a narrow win, which overturned the result when they last met at the Imokilly Mini Rally some four weeks ago.

Shortly before 6pm, the Stewards excluded Michael Cahill (who had provisionally finished sixth) from the event. The decision cited he "consistently broke the national speed limit". 

His competition licence is suspended for a period of 90 days and he was also fined €1,000. He was reminded of his right to appeal. Top seed and local driver Chris O'Callaghan (Ford Escort) finished seventh.

Meanwhile, Ballylickey's Robert Cronin netted two podium finishes in the penultimate event of the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT Championship at Brands Hatch. In Saturday's race Cronin, who started from P4 took the final spot on the podium to move into second in the championship 45 points behind Archie Clark (MDD Racing). 

From P5 in the second race of the weekend, Cronin went one better to take second place - 7.888s behind Jack Collins (E3 Sport), who won both races. With one round (two races) remaining, Cronin is second in the series - 37 points behind Clark, who, like Cronin, had a second and a third over the weekend.

Cronin's younger Colin, racing in the Ginetta Junior Championship, was fifth in Saturday's race while the first of the Sunday races was red-flagged after just five minutes. When it was re-run, Cronin took fifth again and also in the final race of the weekend. 

His Elite Motorsport team mate Fred Green won two of the races, the other was won by Alfie Slater (R Racing).

Thomond Rally, Rathkeale: 1. J. Black/K. Egan (Toyota Starlet) 45m. 42.3s; 2. J. Stafford/R. Cleary (Darrian T90GTR)+2.0s; 3. J. Doogan/P. Lennon (Ford Escort)+55.6s; 4. F. Kelly/L. Kelly (Ford Escort)+1m. 08.4s; 5. K. Cullinane/R. O'Regan (Darrian T90GTR)+1m. 15.4s; 6. V. O'Shea/E. O'Donoghue (Darrian T90GTR) +1m. 21.2s.