British & Irish Rally calendars 2023

[Paul Hudson]

Clacton was probably the best hope, and now that is not happening , They had there fair share of NIMBYS , to be fair.

[Sal yet again]

Chris Ingram:

Awesome first drive of the David Appleby Engineering Triumph TR7 V8 ready for next weeks’ classic RAC Rally Roger Albert Clark Rally.

Massive thanks to the DAE team and their partners for such a unique and amazing opportunity to compete in this event in such an iconic and beautifully built machine.

The rally is 5 days long, 2 days in Wales then heading to Scotland and finishing in Carlisle.

Loving the fact that Chris and the team are all growing taches for Movember in a tribute to Pondy. What a nice touch..

[the sniper]

Grizedale Stages was today, but abandoned due to the snow Cumbria has had. They got through three stages, quite impressed the organisers gave it a go though. Nice video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyJNu5PZhGs

Another win for the Proton R5, for the record books...

https://www.ewrc-results.com/final/8...es-rally-2023/

[HKSjbg]

That's both rallies in the Lakes this year severely affected by snow! Let's hope for better luck next year for the Malcolm Wilson and the Grizedale Stages

Grizedale Stages was today, but abandoned due to the snow Cumbria has had. They got through three stages, quite impressed the organisers gave it a go though. Nice video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyJNu5PZhGs

Another win for the Proton R5, for the record books...

https://www.ewrc-results.com/final/8...es-rally-2023/

Cool to see the DS3 R5 in Abu Dhabi livery, but I'm also confused by car #12 - Robert Adamson. It appears to be a 'works' Ford livery with MS-RT, Ford and Ecoboost logos but the colour scheme is not an official M-Sport livery as far as I'm aware. Whatever the reason behind it, it looks cool!

[the sniper]

Cool to see the DS3 R5 in Abu Dhabi livery, but I'm also confused by car #12 - Robert Adamson. It appears to be a 'works' Ford livery with MS-RT, Ford and Ecoboost logos but the colour scheme is not an official M-Sport livery as far as I'm aware. Whatever the reason behind it, it looks cool!

Yeah that faux M-Sport livery is something, isn't it. A lot of effort seems to have gone into it, far better than all over white!

It'll be interesting to see how often we see that DS3 in future. The Driver has just returned to the sport after a lengthy driving ban, comes from a wealthy background, so hopefully we'll see it regularly. Seems to be a Citroen guy, so maybe the best chance we've got to see a C3 in future...

[Fast Eddie WRC]

It was certainly pretty extreme in Grizedale when you read the report in The Mirror !

"Mike, who works as a waiter at Centre Parcs, said his family had gone to the mountainous Grizedale Rally during the morning from their home in Alston, Cumbria. They had parked with other spectators on the verges of the road before watching the cars take to the rough tracks, which had already been hit with some snow.

But when they decided to leave just before noon, fearing the wintry conditions, a blizzard made the narrow roads completely impassable. Mike said: “We got back to the car at 11.40am, and we didn’t leave the mountain until 7.20pm. I think there are 30 cars still stuck on top of the mountain. It's absolutely mental. It was just forestry roads where everyone was parking on the verge. A local farmer came and pulled most of the cars out.

"But then the police got involved in the evening and advised everyone to abandon their cars and come back down for health and safety reasons. Mountain Rescue teams were up there as well advising everyone to come back down out the way. I would say two and a half foot of snow fell, easily.

"We took it all off the top of the car and within an hour, there was a good seven inches on top of the car again. Last night, another eight inches fell on top of that as well.”

[HKSjbg]

The Galway International seems to have quietly returned to the Irish calendar - I can’t find any news stories since the summer when it appeared to not be running in 2024 but it now has a 2024 date on the official website.

Also, the ITRC calendar is up on eWRC but seems incomplete: https://www.ewrc-results.com/season/...reland-tarmac/

The two NI rounds are on the calendar but without a round # as they were for the last couple of weeks, Cork 20 appears to be two counting rounds and West Cork hasn’t been added - though the event itself is on the eWRC calendar. Nothing official on the ITRC website yet though so don’t know what to make of it…

[HKSjbg]

From the West Cork Rally twitter page:

We have news for 2024...but we're not quite going to tell you just yet!

Stay tuned to the West Cork Rally website and socials at 3.33pm on Thursday, and make sure to keep an eye out for the
@SouthernStarIRL
that morning for some front-page news!

West Cork Rally 2024, you're definitely not gonna want to miss this!!!

I wonder what it could be considering all the major championship (bar the ITRC) have confirmed their calendars, and being included on the ITRC calendar, when released, would be no revelation at all…

Candidate event for a WRC Rally Ireland perhaps?

[HKSjbg]

All it turned out to be was West Cork Rally becoming a 3-day event!

https://twitter.com/westcorkrally/st...25059139371109

Still no official word on the ITRC calendar but I found this article from 2 days ago - which already had West Cork down as a 3-dayer anyway! And it sort of clears up what was going on with Galway.

https://www.irishnews.com/sport/galw...MAPEK2UWPSRLM/

Strangely Cork 20 looks to have been returned to the season finale on the final weekend on September, though I can’t find any confirmation of this elsewhere. It would be sensible however because the season finishing in mid-late August is just ridiculous

[satnav]

The ITRC calendar was announced on Kerry Motorsport news a while back, there's also news on today with regards to Sean Hayde taking on the championship manager role,

https://kerrymotorsportnews.com/2023...FIyCLqQI3GW6vI