Duhallow rally duo Down Under
Charlie Drake and Eoin Moynihan pictured in competitive rally action, and
TWO North Cork natives hope for a trouble free run on contesting the Australian leg of the World Rally championship in Northern New South Wales this weekend.
Celtic Motorsport is the only Irish team contesting with driver Charlie Drake of Derinagree and co-driver Eoin Moynihan from Millstreet in the hot seats.
Drake fronts Celtic Motorsport, owning a PRC Mitsubishi Evo 8 but because of limited funding and changes to make to make the car compliant to run group N in the WRC event, the team have leased a car.
The Derrinagree native landed in Australia in 2002 for a working holiday and is now settled in Sydney.
"I'm 30 years old, the director of my own civil contracting company called Claddagh Civil. We currently employ over 20 people mainly from Cork and have eight lads from Millstreet working," he said.
Drake held no previous rally experience in Ireland and only got hooked on rallying here after undergoing a rally training day.
"I bought a Toyota Corolla and in our first ever rally in New South Wales, we won the 1600cc class. For a spell, I put rallying on the back burner to concentrate on building my business", he said.
At the start of this year, Drake bought a PRC EVO and joined Moynihan to enter the Australian Rally Championship.
"It was a steep learning curve for us getting used to a forward turbo car and developing a pace note system that we were comfortable with. On our first national round in Canberra, we finished 7th overall which was a fantastic result considering we were competing against vastly more experienced and well equipped teams", he said.
The current year has been about developing the car and getting as much kilometres as possible and experience
"We have had a relatively successful year in the ARC which has resulted in a starting spot being secured in the Australian round of the WRC. The best moment was finishing seventh in Heat 2 in Rally Canberra and probably our most disappointing moment was breaking the rear diff on stage 3 in Rally Queensland which put us out the rally. We had a great test at that event and confidence was high, so it was really frustrating to be putting the car on the trailer so soon into the event," he said.
Eoin grew up in Millstreet in the company of uncles who avidly follow rallying such as the Circuit of Ireland, Rally of the Lakes and Cork 20.
"It was only natural that I would get drawn in by the ambiance of the sport from an early age. I took every opportunity to travel to different rallies and to help out. Following my move to Australia in 2005, I met up with Charlie again and jumped at the chance to pursue our mutual interest in rallying," he said.
The Australian round of the WRC offers the Duhallow men an opportunity to further their interest in the sport.
"The main aim for the rally is obviously get the car and crew home in one piece and to soak up the atmosphere of the rally week. We have many friends and supporters travelling from around Australia to support us and both myself and Eoin are very proud to be flying the Irish flag on the world stage," said Charlie.
- John Tarrant
