Cronin seals Tarmac Championship as Devine wins Cork 20
A runner-up finish on a rain-shortened Cork 20 Rally was enough for Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin to secure the 2024 Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.
The final round of the championship was won by Callum Devine and Noel O’Sullivan, tying them on equal points with Cronin and Galvin. Both crews had three victories and two runner-up finishes to their names but Cronin’s fourth-place finish on Killarney’s Rally of the Lakes clinched the title for the Ford Fiesta Rally2 crew.
Heavy rain in Cork forced the crews to brave the elements on Sunday with demanding conditions across all of the Cork 20 stages.
Devine opened the road in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 and locked up on standing water leading up to a stage one chicane. The County Derry driver survived the moment to set the stage’s fastest time but his advantage was overturned by Cronin on the next test.
A brace of stage wins gave Devine a 10.4-second lead after Cork’s fourth test but Cronin was perfectly managing his second-place safe in the knowledge that was all he needed to seal his first Irish Tarmac title since 2016.
Devine extended his lead to 12.1 seconds on stage five before a spin on stage six pulled the front bumper off his Skoda. The 30-year-old still held the rally lead but the stage-time didn’t matter as event organisers decided to end the rally after five stages as road conditions continued to worsen.
The Cork 20 success is Devine and O’Sullivan’s third ITRC win in the past four events, marking a near-perfect second half of the season. It wasn’t enough, however, to topple year-long championship leaders Cronin and Galvin who showed their skill since an opening-round victory in Galway.
“We came here to do a job, we knew what we had to do, and we did it,” said Cronin. “It would have been all too easy to let the guard down and get into a battle with Callum and Noel for the rally win, but in doing so we could have thrown away the championship so easily.
“Those were some of the wettest conditions I have ever experienced on a rally, the amount of water on the roads in places was unbelievable, we had a near miss as it was when we came on to a place on the second loop where there had been no water the first time around, we hit it and ran wide and filled a wheel with mud.
“Callum had a spin towards the end too, it was just so easy for it all to go wrong.”
Matt Edwards and David Moynihan rounded out the Cork 20 podium, a further 25.2 seconds back. Their fifth top-three finish of the year put them third in the standings at the end of their maiden Irish Tarmac campaign together.
Donegal’s David Kelly had threatened Edwards for third early on but crashed out of fourth on the fifth stage. England’s James Ford looked set to pick up the position but retired on the same stage with gearbox trouble hitting his Citroen C3.
World Rally Championship regulars Josh McErlean and James Fulton had an eventful day on their return to home competition. They lost over 40 seconds with a high-speed spin on stage one and a puncture on stage two.
Kelly and Ford’s exit propelled McErlean up to fourth on stage five before setting the fastest time on the soon-to-be cancelled stage six.
In modifieds, Frank and Lauren Kelly hit Cork’s soaking Sunday morning stages in rapid fashion. There were moments aplenty but Kelly survived to tell the tale and with an 11.9-second lead to boot he was able to soak up some subsequent Daniel McKenna pressure.
Kelly was in a fight with Damian Toner for Irish Tarmac’s modified title. Four points shy after the Ulster Rally, Kelly’s early morning assault combined with a misfire and a misted windscreen for Toner to shift the title control into his hands.
The Moy-based driver kept his cool on stage four to stay in the modified lead, claiming Cork 20 honours at the end of stage five. The result gave the Father-Daughter a memorable ITRC title after an epic season of duelling with Toner’s Ford Escort.
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Photo by Seamus Counihan
