on BFGoodrich tyresIrish rally star, Eugene Donnelly, secured an impressive fourth Irish Tarmac Rally Championship title over the weekend with his fourth place performance on the Cork 20 International Rally good enough to clinch the 2007 crown.
Going into the event, Eugene and co-driver, Paul Kiely, held a nine-point advantage over closest rival, Mark Higgins, but with this the final event of the season offering one and a half times the normal points haul, Donnelly needed to make sure Higgins was no more than two places above him in the final result. Drawing on his experience from past years on the rally, where he won in 2004 and has finished second and third in 2005 and 2006, Eugene brought his Reid Transport-BFGoodrich Subaru WRC machine home in fourth place with Higgins in third.
“We knew we just had to have a steady run to bring home the title so we stayed on the safe side,” said Eugene afterwards. “The conditions were changeable; it was quite slippy on day one but the BFGoodrich tyres gave me the confidence to keep pushing on and in the end we put nearly two minutes on the cars behind us. It’s been a fantastic season; the BFGoodrich rubber has really been an advantage for me this year and the BFG technicians have provided me with some invaluable data throughout the season to enable me to get the most from the tyres.”
BFGoodrich brand manager, Andy Williamson was delighted with his man’s result: "BFGoodrich would like to congratulate Eugene on the fantastic achievement of winning his 4th Irish Tarmac Crown. Eugene’s victory complements our success in the WRC and supports our claim of being the world leader in rally tyres. The brand awareness this brings will really support the sales of our BFGoodrich car and 4x4 product through our Irish dealer network."
The event was won by World Champion, Sebastien Loeb, whose BFGoodrich-shod Citroen C4WRC was entered alongside fellow World Rally Championship runners Dani Sordo, second in the sister Citroen, and the BP-Ford Focus WRC of Mikko Hirvonen (5th overall), all of whom were getting the Irish experience under their belts in preparation for November’s Rally Ireland. Donnelly is now set to compete with BFGoodrich in the WRC event.
