Motor Sport RallyingIrish motor sport was celebrating yesterday after receiving confirmation a leg of the World Rally Championship would be staged in the Northwest next year.
The granting of World Rally Championship (WRC) status for 2007/2008, as confirmed by the Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA) in Paris, is a huge boost for Rally Ireland, which beat five other candidates - Norway, Portugal, Jordan, South Africa and Poland - for the privilege.
The first Rally Ireland WRC will take place in the Northwest from November 18th to 20th, 2007, and could be the largest sporting event staged in Ireland, rivalling the upcoming Ryder Cup in golf.
Competitors are certain to include such greats as Sébastien Loeb of France (world champion and leader of the current series), Marcus Grönholm of Finland (twice world champion and second in the 2006 standings) and Petter Solberg of Norway (the 2003 champion).
Max Mosley, the president of the (FIA), was full of praise for the Irish event and its organisers.
"We are pleased to welcome Ireland to the FIA World Rally Championship," he said. "Your team worked hard in their bid and set very high standards. Rally Ireland will bring many new and unique features to the championship, including being the first round to run competitive stages cross-Border."
Sponsored by Fáilte Ireland and the Northern Ireland Events Company, Rally Ireland's entry into the WRC has been the culmination of 18 months' work.
The Minister for Sport, John O'Donoghue, said: "This is a wonderful success for Irish motorsport and Irish sport in general and all the more so as it is a cross- Border initiative.
"The WRC has an annual TV viewership of more than 800 million, so the images of Ireland shown abroad will be of great benefit to the tourism industry."
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, was similarly upbeat. "As a motorsport fan, I am delighted with this decision . . . Having seen at close hand the impact that Rally Ireland has made to date, I am delighted by what hosting a full WRC round will be able to contribute to the economy and the development of social cohesion."
Research by the University of Ulster found the WRC event could be worth almost €50 million from spend by spectators as well as the spin-off from global media coverage.
Dr David Hassan said: "This is truly ground-breaking research in terms of sport. Rally Ireland has sought to not only quantify the economic impact of the event but also its contribution to building social capital and social cohesion."
The WRC round will follow a similar format to two recent pilot events, based in Sligo with service in Enniskillen and stages in Donegal, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Sligo and Leitrim.
The WRC is run over a variety of surfaces from snow and ice to gravel, dirt, forestry roads and tarmac. Rally Ireland's stages will be on tarmac.
The WRC traditionally starts with the Monte Carlo Rally and visits Argentina, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Corsica, Sardinia and Greece.
Rally Ireland is the brainchild of Dubliner Ronan Morgan, who has rallied as co-driver for more than 30 years, winning events and championships from the Circuit of Ireland (with the legendary Billy Coleman) to the Middle East. He was event director of Wales Rally GB before starting the ambitious Irish project.
Now the real hard work begins for Morgan, the rally Ireland team and his colleague the Wicklow-based Seán O'Connor, who has worked since 1991 in the WRC as a sponsorship and marketing consultant.
