Motorsport: West's awake with opening rounds of all three Irish major rally championships 

The Galway, Sligo and Mayo motor clubs are the respective event organisers.

Donegal's James McShea (VW UP) won the J1000 category of the 2025 Sligo Pallets Irish Forest Rally Championship and was subsequently awarded the top prize in the Craig Breen Foundation. Picture: Martin Walsh.

The West of Ireland will host the opening rounds of all three Irish major rally championships in 2026 - the NAPA Auto Parts Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, the Irish Forest Rally Championship and the Triton Showers National Rally Championship - with the Galway, Sligo and Mayo motor clubs the respective event organisers.

It appears the organisers of the Irish Forest Rally Championship are set to announce a new sponsor for the series that begins with the Connacht Yeats Ridge Forest Rally on February 15 next. As revealed in the Irish Examiner last week, Sligo Pallets withdrew their sponsorship due to what the company's chief executive Andrew Mullen termed "ongoing and unresolved communication issues with the Forestry Sub Commission."