Rally Of The Lakes 2023 - Rallynewsie.com

Devine retains Lakes crown

The 2023 Assess Ireland Killarney Rally of the lakes got underway on Saturday morning bright and early with a blast up molls gap. After coming over the top of the gap the rear of Jonny Greers Citreön C3 rally2 got away from him and whacked a large rock on the outside of the corner. Last years winner Callum Devine got off to nightmare start as he carried a puncture through the 17.5km molls gap stage.

So a bad start for Greer but Kerry man Rob Duggan was fastest up the gap by an astonishing 10 seconds over Robert Barrable. On Cods Head Meirion Evans’s polo R5 rolled but were not able to continue on Sunday thankfully the crew were ok. Moffett and Devine were the only two to complete the stage before Evans’s off and the Derry man blasted through the stage a mind blowing 14.5 seconds quicker than Moffett. The other crews were nominated Moffetts time and that put Devine back into contention. Duggan was amazing for his first outing in a r5 since 2018 but Derry man Callum Devine wasn’t here to mess around in the Kingdom he was here to win and over stage 4 he snatched the lead of the rally from Rob Duggan by going 6.5 seconds quicker than Rob. This opened the door for Robert Barrable who was 0.8 seconds behind Duggan after ss4. The pair traded times for the rest of the day and Devine had an overnight lead of 7.5 seconds while Duggan fell of the pace of Barrable in the afternoon and ended his day 6.5 seconds behind the dublin man. On Sunday morning Devine extended his lead to over 11 seconds he was Unstoppable while Duggan lost more time again 25 seconds behind now. Sam Moffett tried to have a go at the gap but it resulted in him spinning into a chicane and damaging his Hyundai i20 rally2 bringing his rally to a end. Robert Barrable dropped behind Rob Duggan on ss12 by 5.4 then on ss13 Barrable took the fight back to Duggan on home territory but by only 0.2 seconds battle on. Casey jay Coleman added his name to the list of retirements as he had a spectacular crash on Gortnagane

The final stages were a bit easier for Callum Devine than last year as this time he didn’t win the rally on the final stage but rather cruised home to retain his Killarney crown. Rob Duggan unfortunately didn’t manage to make it through the final stage after his first r5 outing since 2018. That promoted Moffett to that final podium spot. The final results:

1st Callum Devine/Noel O'Sullivan

2nd Robert Barrable/Gordon Noble

3rd Josh Moffett/Andy Hayes

4th Enda O'Brien/John Butler

5th Declan Boyle/Patrick Walsh

6th Gary Kiernan/John McGrath

7th Eddie Doherty/Tom Murphy

8th James Ford/Neil Shanks

9th Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy

10th John McCarthy/Kieran O'Donoghue