The Mandy Magic!
Meet the Kelly’s, Manus Kelly and Donal Barrett at the finishing ramp as they extended family get in on the celebration.. Photo Brian McDaid
Last weekend Glenswilly’s Manus Kelly converted a test drive in a new Subaru WRC into an outright win as he made the transfer from his normal MK2 Escort to a Subaru on the Carlow Stages Rally.
Manus Kelly was called after his late grandfather, and both more commonly got “Mandy” for short. And like his grandfather competitors took notice when he turned up for the sports day in Glenswilly. It didn’t matter what sport he participated in, he was a natural athlete and had the great ability to adapt.
One of his grandfather’s favourite sports was “Tossing the Sheaf,” The sheaf was normally made with rushes which were tied tight with bailing cord. Tossing the sheaf was a traditional event originally contested at country fairs. Three chances are given to each competitor to cleanly go over the bar, without touching it. After all challengers have made their attempts, the bar is raised and all successful competitors move on to the new height. This continues until all but one athlete is eliminated.
A month from this week Mandy Kelly will raise his own personal bar to the highest point in his rallying career in a Subaru WRC. He will take part in the Donegal International Rally, and hopefully he will be keeping her out of the rushes.
Mandy has taken a decade of rallying to get to this level. From standing on a ditch on the Breenagh special stage watching local lads like Damien Gallagher power his escort out over the hills, Mandy was hooked on rallying for life.
Commit, Focus, Believe and Achieve. Manus Kelly back in his old school last week after his outright win on the National section of the Donegal Rally. Photo Brian McDaid
Gaelic was the big sport that developed in Glenswilly when Mandy was growing up, and he played a bit of football himself and while other Glen men were making it to the Donegal team, Mandy was heading to a Donegal of another sort.
As June arrived every year, Mandy Kelly along with his navigator Donal Barrett have progressed through the different levels on their way up the rallying table. The road has not been an easy one for the Donegal crew, commitment at ten tenths is a very fine line between winning and losing.
All time low
Two Donegal’s ago, the crew had one of there biggest offs on the Saturday stages of the Donegal Rally. In the following days, weeks and months the crew thought they never would sit in a rally car again.
But rallying was their sport and their return the following year and an outright win in the national part of the Donegal rally gave them the confidence they were looking for,
Local hero
Manus Kelly and his Ford Escort Mk2 pictured back in his old school , Glenswilly NS where he was one of the special guests at the end of years school prize giving. Photo /Brian McDaid
On the week after Manus Kelly’s win on last year’s national of the Donegal Rally, he was invited to the school where he was taught as a boy. He landed with his Ford Escort MK2 and drove it into the play ground where he once dreamed of becoming a rally driver himself.
After all the children in Glenswilly National School gathered a round his Mk2 Escort to get their photo taken. He was invited into the school hall to give the children a talk on his success on the Donegal .
Donned out in his rally gear, Manus stood in the school hall with pictures of former students like the Donegal Captain, Michael Murphy , and a battle scared Neil Gallagher holding aloft the National League Title.
One year on and Mandy feels like he is back at school again as he gets to grips with the workings of his World Rally Car. He only got a short run in the rally car on a narrow wet mucky road the night before the Carlow Rally.
He wasn’t happy at all in the car and nothing was going right for him,
So when the car just sat there at the start of stage one in Carlow on Sunday a very nervous Mandy was beginning to wonder was this World WRC route right for him at all.
Manus Kelly with Ian Barrett and Rory Kennedy at the Rally Press conference at An Grianan. Photo Brian McDaid
When Mandy and Donal made it to the end of the first stage and realised they were leading the rally the could not believe how well they came on to the car.
As Mandy would tell you himself Mk 2 Escorts have a rawness and will never give you the same result over the same bump on a stage. With the Subaru WRC it’s a different experience. This Subaru that Mandy dove on Sunday is so well prepared.
On the second run through the same stages we were able to punch in some very good times as our confidence grew with the car. They never went out looking to win the rally, more to get stage miles under their belt.
The win is very welcome bonus and the Donegal crew were over the moon, but their focus is Donegal in June. Ideally they would like another small rally before The Donegal but time is ticking away.
THE SPECIAL ONE ARRIVES.
1978 was the year Mandy arrived into this world and him roaring his head off in his four wheel drive pram up the Glen. Donegal also had a visit from one of the best rally drivers in the world.
Fellow Glenswilly man Andy Hegarty sponsored one of the great “flying fins” Ari Vatanenn as he competed on the Donegal Rally in a world rally car. It was a Ford Escort RS 1800 like no other escort ever seen in Donegal before . The David Sutton prepared car was square arched over the wheels and not rounded like all the RS1800’s of the day. The engine was moved back as far as possible to give the car the best centre of gravity. The car and its team were in Hegarty’s Auto Services in Ballymacool in Letterkenny all week on the run up to the rally.
Manus Kelly is interview for RPM by Letterkenny’s Toni Kelly with Plum Tyndall on the camera at the Milford Service. 2306bd302
In 1978 a young motoring fan, (me!) was 14 years of age, with an evening job on the petrol pumps in Hegarty’s garage. We got off work to watch one stage of the Donegal Rally in Rosbeg. Standing on the top of a ditch I was completely hooked for life in rallying as Ari Vatanen blasted through the stage. The pure car control and his speed was something else. Ari Vatanen went on to win the rally by a country mile all them years ago.
38 years on and Mandy Kelly might be competing in a bigger field than his grandfather did all them years ago. Mandy will always remember and enjoy his first outright win on the Carlow Stages Rally last weekend, But Donegal is Donegal and Mandy will be the first to tell you that. Its a three day event and the pace is frantic, so here is hoping that Mandy and his navigator will clear the bar that they have raised through years of hard work and will celebrate on the podium at the finish of the donegal rally on Sunday evening. Wishing you the best of luck and local support on the rally.
RTE’s Michael Lyster pictured with fellow competitors Mandy Kelly Glenswilly, Donal Barrett Milford, Sean Lafferty Stranorlar and Gavin Harris Convoy. As they take a break from the rally at service on Sunday.Photo Brian McDaid
Fuel Watch
We have a fuel watch with a difference this week. In keeping with the rally, we priced the racing fuel used in a rally car like Mandy’s. The price we got was for a brand call Carless, and its not cheep. It costs three pounds sterling plus VAT per litre.
We got talking to the winner of last year’s Donegal Rally, Rory Kennedy,who navigated for Gary Jennings. Its the the navigators job to work out how much fuel it will take to complete a loop of special stages with enough fuel left to get back to the service for refuelling.
Gary Jennings Subaru burned a litre of fuel for every kilometre it traveled on a special stage, or 4.5 miles to the gallon in old money. On the road sections which are called “in transit” The Subaru was much better, it travelled 2.5 kilometres on a litre of racing fuel. Happy motoring.
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