UK: Eamon McElavaney Mayo Stages summary

Difficult Championship Opener for McElvaney

Eamon McElvaney kicked off his challenge for Class 6 honours in the Dunlop National Championship at the Mayo Stages Rally this weekend. The eight-stage rally was run in classic rally territory in the Partry Mountains area of Mayo in fine weather conditions.

The Motorsport Ireland Billy Coleman Award winner began the day well with fastest A6 time on the opening stage. A steady run though SS2 saw Eamon maintain his class lead by 5 seconds. His luck changed on the next stage when a broken throttle cable cost the twenty year old almost two minutes dropping him to sixth place.

This problem was solved in service and Eamon set about making up some of the time he had lost.

On the remaining stages of the day a hard landing from an earlier stage came back to haunt him and this hampered his charge up the leaderboard. The chassis of the Peugeot 106 was bent and this was making the car almost impossible to handle. Despite this the Monaghan driver made up three places in just four stages and finished the event 3rd in class and of course clocking up seven valuable championship points.

"It was a tough day, but with all the problems we had I am delighted to come away with 3rd in class," commented Eamon.

His next event is round 2 of the National Championship the Circuit of Kerry on 3rd April.

-cw-