AS PART OF WORLD BID

Ireland’s World Rally Championship (WRC) candidate event, Rally Ireland, will expand next year into counties Donegal and Tyrone, while also taking place in Sligo, Leitrim and Fermanagh, over the weekend of Friday, 10th to Sunday, 12th March 2006.

Rally Ireland, supported by Fáilte Ireland and Northern Ireland Events Company (NIEC) is the most ambitious North-South sporting initiative ever undertaken on the island of Ireland. If Ireland does secure one of the sixteen rounds in this prestigious global series, it would see the North West host Ireland’s largest annual sporting event.  Rally Ireland 2006 event will be broadcast in over 60 countries around the world.

“We have picked the best technical route for a WRC event and the addition of Donegal and Tyrone, along with Sligo, Leitrim and Fermanagh, makes the Rally more challenging for the crews,” said Clerk of the Course, Tom Nolan.

“The 2006 event is on target to run on a 275 kilometres all tarmac surface.  Sligo will be the host city, with the service park based at Enniskillen Airport, both of which worked exceptionally well for us in 2005,” Nolan concluded.

“We are on a very tight schedule but are meeting all the deadlines,” said Gordon Noble, Deputy Clerk of the Course Gordon, referring to the requirement to provide the sport’s world governing body, the Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA), with full route details by 30th November 2005.

The next major landmark in the World Championship bid will be the visit by the FIA Safety delegate, Jacek Bartos from Poland, to view the route in early December. Bartos is regarded as one of the most influential people in the sport and in securing Ireland’s bid, given the need by candidate countries to have effective safety measures on their events.