Nov 30,2024
This Saturday's Killarney Historic Rally will kick off the 2025 NAPA Auto Parts Irish Tarmac Rally Championship (ITRC) and is also round one of the Wales Motorsport Fabrication Historic series.
Two-time World Rally champions Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen are tackling the famous Moll's Gap, Ballaghbeama, Caragh Lake, and Kilcummin stages in the rally’s modified category.
Rovanpera will drive Jason Black’s Toyota Starlet over the eight-stage event, the biggest Historic Rally in Europe and his list of challengers include top seed and previous winner of the category Robert Duggan, along with former ITRC modified champion Kevin Eves as well as Conor Murphy, Declan Gallagher, and Colin O’Donoghue.
Indeed the Finn is in the news this week as Rovanpera will return to the World Rally Championship (WRC) full-time next season with Toyota. He only competed in seven rallies this year after lifting the WRC title in 2022 and 2023, winning four events in 2024.
Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, the eight-time world champion, will continue racing for Toyota on a part-time basis and the 2025 season gets under way in Monte Carlo on 23 January, with Belgium's Thierry Neuville the new champion.
Speaking ahead of this weekend, Rovanpera said of Black’s car: "I saw some videos, it looks really nice and quick as well – something like 380bhp. I think that’s enough."
The rally will also serve as a special moment for Killarney’s own Paul Nagle (below), a former World Rally-winning co-driver and one time navigator to the late Craig Breen, who emphasised the significance of having Rovanpera at the event: "It’s huge," Nagle said.
"Killarney is always one of the biggest days on the Irish rallying calendar, and it just got bigger. To see Kalle Rovanpera going up Moll’s Gap in Jason’s Starlet will be one of the sights of the season."
While Rovanpera, Duggan and co are rallying in the modified category, there is a 70-car plus entry for the historic category led by two-time Killarney winner Jonathan Greer.
Greer has once again swapped his usual Citroen C3 Rally2 for his Ford Sierra to defend the end-of-year classic alongside co-driver Niall Burns.
The Northern Irish driver will come under threat from the likes of Donagh Kelly and Rory Kennedy, who have finished fourth, sixth, and second in their last three Killarney attempts aboard the Bastos-liveried BMW M3.
Local favourites Alan Ring and Adrian Deasy are seeded third in their Subaru Legacy and will be looking to go one better than their runner-up finishes in 2021 and 2022.
Historic ITRC’s three most recent championship winners have entered 2025’s opening round.
Wales’ Tomas Davies will start the defence of his drivers’ title, seeded eighth in Killarney aboard his Ford Escort RS1800.
Davies is a winner in this event - taking the 2011 edition ahead of Denis Moynihan’s Ford Escort RS1600. Moynihan who has made no fewer than ten Killarney Historic starts, winning in 2015 and 2018.
2023 and 2019 Historic ITRC champion Duncan Williams will make his 10th Killarney Historic Rally start, his first event with Cork co-driver Iarla McCarthy calling the pacenotes.
The 2022 championship-winning duo of Neil Williams and Anthony O’Sullivan are seeded within the Historic top-five seedings.
Cathan McCourt, Eamonn Kelly, and Eddie Doherty join Greer as regulars on the Irish Tarmac Rally scene are switching to historic machinery on Saturday.
Tom Clark, Ray Breen, and John O’Donnell have proved their potential here and start 2025’s opener in a Ford Escort, Subaru Legacy, and BMW M3 respectively.
Fergus O’Meara completes the top 12 with a certain Irish Tarmac champion co-driver, Mikie Galvin, joining O’Meara on his BMW M3 debut.
