The sixth round of the Triton Showers-backed Motorsport Ireland National Rally Championship centres on the town of Oldcastle, County Meath on Sunday.
The ALMC Hellfire Rally has attracted a capacity entry as the championship reaches its' business end of the season.
After five of the eight scheduled rounds, Josh Moffatt and Keith Moriarty hold a 21-point advantage over their nearest rivals Callum Devine and Noel O’Sullivan.
On paper that sounds like a lot, but the defending champions have started one more event than Devien and O’Sullivan and dropped scores will be play a significant role in where the Vard Memorial Trophy will go at the end of the season.
In the four head-to-head battles so far this season – Volkswagen Polo RC2 driver Devine decided to skip the Raven’s Rock in July – the two title rivals have two wins a piece, Devine won in Longford at the start of the season and was leading the Sligo Rally when it was cruelly halted.
Moffett, now equipped with the newer version of the Hyundai i20 Rally 2 car that his brother used earlier in the year, has been victorious in Kerry, Cavan and Waterford when Devine was absent.
Declan Boyle has not enjoyed the best of luck in recent times, but his mid-season switch from a Volkswagen Polo to a Citroen C3 has paid dividends. His second-place finish in Waterford was his best result to date. The Donegal driver and his Welsh co-driver Patrick Walsh are the third seeds for Sunday’s rally.
Making a welcome retrain to one-day rallying is Dubliner Gareth MacHale in his right-hand drive Polo.
He and co-driver Brian Murphy won the Galway Summer Rally last August but have concentrated on multi-day International rallies so far this season. Their appearance in Oldcastle with add plenty of spice to the battle for overall honours.
Also, Polo mounted is West Cork’s Daniel Cronin who is fifth in the championship standings and starts at five in Oldcastle.
Wicklow’s Daniel Barry and his Motorsport Ireland navi Lorcan Moore are scheduled to make a return too after Barry crashed his Skoda Fabia R5 out of the Cavan Rally.
Boyle’s son Michael starts one place behind. The younger Boyle has elected to stay with the Polo and his third-place points finish in the Raven’s Rock Rally in July is a season highlight.
Andrew Purcell and Shane Buckley make their first championship appearance since the Circuit of Kerry in April in their Ford Fiesta R5.
They start at eight while series sponsor Paul Barret starts at nine in his Citroen C3 Rally 3.
The top overseas seed is Steve Wood from Wales. He gave his newly acquired Citroen its' debut in Sligo and finished eighth in the Carryduff Forklift Down Rally in mid-July.
The championship’s leading modified contender Kevin Gallagher starts at six in his Darrian T90 GTR and will have a host of fast Ford Escort drivers breathing down his neck including Daniel McKenna, Chris Armstrong, former event winner Jonathan Pringle and Gary Kiernan.
The Toyota Starlet of Richard Moffett breaks the Escort dominance.
The top 20 is completed by Gareth Sayers (Ford Fiesta), Group N championship leader Michael Carbin, the Citroen of Cork’s Jason McSweeney and the local crew Jack Newman and Andrew Browne in another Ford Escort.
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