Torrential wind and rain paved the way for John Warren and Ruthann O Connor yesterday as they rolled out the McHale Rally team Fiesta R5 for an outing at the O’Connell Group Cork 20 Rally, the final round of this year’s Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.

A cautious approach to the first stage, located north-west of Rathcormac, seen the South Mayo crew lie in 13th place in a class of 25 similar 4 wheel drive turbo engine rally cars, such were the conditions, simply getting to the finish of the river like stage was an achievement, as the event wore on despite conditions worsening for all of the 151 crews that started the event, the McHale crew sailed their M-Sport built Fiesta Rally car up the leader board, lying in 9th place in Class and 16th place overall at the midway point of the event.

But amidst safety concerns and deteriorating weather conditions, the organisers of the event made the decision to curtail the event and make the results final after five stages.

“Those were some of the wettest conditions I have ever experienced on a rally, the amount of water on the roads in places was unbelievable” added John after the cars returned to the service park. The main concern added Ruthann was “We were coming onto places on the second loop where there had been no water the first time around, we were lucky a couple of times as we hit standing water and the car got out of shape, it was just so easy for it all to go wrong.”

Keith Cronin and co-driver Mikie Galvin in a newer model Rally2 Fiesta were crowned the Irish Tarmac Rally champions after they finished second to outgoing champions Callum Devine and Noel O’Sullivan in a Skoda. Multiple British champion Matt Edwards also in a Fiesta was third ahead of World Rally Championship regulars Josh McErlean and James Fulton, who had a spin and a stall on the first stage in their Skoda, followed by a puncture on the second stage.

Tyrone’s Frank and Lauren Kelly in their Ford Escort MK2 finished tenth overall, winning the Modified category in the event and the McEvoy Motorsport backed Modified Tarmac series.

Next up for the McHale Rally team may be a trip to the Donegal Harvest Rally in two weeks’ time, with work as busy as usual for Warren, a design engineer with McHale Engineering in Ballinrobe, the husband a wife crew will try to fusion up a deal to head for hills of Donegal.

To keep up to date with the McHale Rally team and check out some of the amazing footage from their events follow ‘McHale Rallying’ on TikTok