Historic Heroes and the Modified Men.

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DMC's Donagh Kelly & Rory Kennedy took a commanding win at the 2024 Killarney Historic rally, over the events 8 stages. The pair in the BMW M3 set some blistering times in the early stages of the event and did enough to keep in front of the chasing pack for the remainder.

Donagh thoroughly enjoyed the historic event he said in an end of stage interview, with Rory speaking of his fondness for the Killarney event where he got his first international win alongside Bertie fisher in a similar spec E30 M3.

Donaghs son Eamonn & Conor Mohan were the early leaders, with an 8 second advantage after the first stage over the 16.9km iconic Molls Gap in a similar spec E30 M3.

Kelly/Kennedy fought back on ss2 with a time 5.3sec quicker to lower the gap to 4.7 seconds. This lead was short lived with Kelly/Mohan having an accident on ss3 which ended their rally.

2022 & 2023 event winners Johnny Greer& Niall Burns were hoping to continue the winning streak to complete a hatrick of wins, however, a boost leak on the opening loop put a pass to any chance of the overall title. Leaving the car slightly down on power but still driving, saw Greer/Burns  complete the opening loop, return to service and rectify the issue.

In a case of what could have been, Greer/Burns would set a blistering time 13.1 seconds quicker than the overall historic leader Kelly/Kennedy on the second run of molls gap. Setting consistently quick times on the remaining 5 stages, with another stage win on ss6, wasn't enough to overcome the 2 minutes 29sec deficit accumulated from the loss of power on the opening loop but they fought back to earn 7th position overall & 4th in class. .

John O'Donnell & Paddy Robinson had a consistent run over the opening loop, and were sitting in 4th position only 8 seconds off a podium position. O'Donnell/Robinson stamped their authority on both runs over the Kilcummin test to set quickest time on SS7 and a second quickest time on ss8 in the dark. This sealed 3rd position overall for O'Donnell/Robinson with a fantastic start to the 2025 historic championship

John Bonner & Damien McGettigan used all of their experience to keep their noses clean on the tough event and held a steady pace over the 8 stages sitting 2nd in class until the final 2 stages where they moved into 1st in class D5.

The modified battle was just as intense with 2 time world champion Kalle Rovanperä & navigator Jonne Hulttunen using Jason blacks 2.5 Toyota starlet for the event. There was huge hype pre-event with much speculation whether the 2 time world champion would be any match for Rob Duggan on molls gap.

Kevin Eves/Chris Melly were seeded 3rd, just behind Rovanperä/Hulttunen with Declan Gallagher/John McCarthy further back in a similar spec starlet to the finn. Daniel McKenna/Andrew Grennan finished out the DMC crews seeded in the top 10.

Disaster for Rovanperä as his starlet stopped briefly with an issue on the opening stage just before the right handed at the molls gap viewpoint. Help from a spectator saw the starlet fire into life again but 5 min were dropped in the process. Kevin Eves failed to finish the opening stage also, with no sign of him for the remainder of the event

Rob Duggan, as expected, set a blistering time over molls gap with Gallagher/McCarthy his closest challenger 15sec adrift. Rumours stated however that a midway split had Rovanperä 5 sec up on Duggan near the midpoint of the stage before his mechanical issues.

Gallagher took a stage win on the following Ballaghbeama test to close the gap to 9.3 seconds. McKenna/Grennan sat in 7th with Patrick McHugh/Richard cleary rounding out the top 10 modified. Ss3 saw another stage win for the Fear Bainne, 2.9sec ahead of Rovanperä/Hulttunen.

After the first service of the day, the Flying Finn bit back on molls gap and ended the speculation if he was any match for Rob Duggan's experience with a stage win on molls gap by 1.5 sec over Duggan.

Returning to the final service, Gallagher/McCarthy sat 2nd overall, McKenna/Grennan were 4th & McHugh/cleary sat in 10th overall, positions which would remain until the finish bar McHugh/cleary moving up one position to 9th.

Martin McGee/Karl Reid & John Shovelin/Dylan Baskin all had a fantastic run to finish the event in one piece, with treacherous conditions reported by all on SS7, standing water due to the amount of rain during the stage.

Gabriel Farry/Niamh Pickens had a last minute call to compete in the event, sitting on the reserve list they finally got the anticipated phone call. After 8 successful stages they managed to round out class 5.

Ben Walsh/Damien Sheridan had a frustrating event with a broken wire before the start line of ss3 forcing them into retirement. Gary Cooney/ Darren Curran also succumbed to mechanical issues at the start of SS7, and we're unable to continue.

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