Japanese Performance Car Club Northern Ireland, more affectionately known as JPCCNI, the largest Japanese based car club in the province, are no strangers to hosting car shows and running events. Monthly cars and coffee meets and annual charity events such as the Show and Shine at Loughgall Festival of Motorsport, as well as “Skooled” at Killard House School in Donaghadee, it’s safe to say that JPCCNI are well established within the car enthusiasts world in Ireland. So when you suddenly see an influx of performance, classic and modified Japanese cars driving down Queens Road, Belfast, and turning into the Titanic…
Author: Graham Baalham-Curry
Classic Rallypress Ltd was set up in 2002 by Malcolm McKay and Mike Johnson and they now organise events designed to tempt people who have never competed into having a go themselves. Using their wealth of experience from competing in and photographing dozens of events around the world, they brought a professional approach and competitive pricing to the world’s first historic microcar rally, Liège-Brescia-Liège, in 2008. It proved hugely popular both with highly experienced competitors and with many novices on their first ever rally. Keeping their rallies as ‘niche’ events for specific vehicle groups and/or in places other rallies haven’t…
On Saturday 2 July, 2022, when turning off Groomsport’s Main Street onto Harbour Road, the song lyrics ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside…’ reverberated around my head whilst members of the public strolled upon the prom, prom, prom. Sadly, there was no tiddle-on-pom-pom from a brass band playing. Instead, the Morris Minor Owners Club Northern Ireland had their A Series engines well tuned to provide the perfect choir. Beside them with Glee, other makes and models of classic cars invited via the Association of Old Vehicles Clubs, creating a wonderful seaside ensemble. This Morris Minor Owners Club…
Josh Moffett and Andy Hayes survived a brutal final day of the Donegal International Rally to take their maiden Donegal win. Callum Devine started Sunday morning with a 17.7-second lead over Wales’ Matt Edwards. With Alastair Fisher and Josh Moffett over 25 seconds further back, it looked like Donegal would be a straight fight between the top two with Devine bagging important points in his bid for the Acesigns Irish Tarmac Rally Championship. That quickly changed, however, when Devine’s Volkswagen Polo R5 took out a round bale in Sunday’s opening Gartan test. Gartan has form for upsetting Donegal leaders and…
Motoring event experts, GTI NI, return in top form bringing us their second instalment of Eurotreffen, held at the Blue Circle Boat Club just down the coast from Larne. This highly anticipated outdoor car show was put together at fairly short notice last year, and turned out to be yet another GTI NI success story; hence it’s return on Saturday 2 July. 2022. The County Antrim event, which has replaced, and considerably surpassed a GTI NI summer show that for years was held Castlewellan Forest Park, did not disappoint. When you have the team behind internationally renowned car show, Dubshed,…
After the annual ANICC awards evening was cancelled in January, due to the covid situation, each motorsport discipline was to arrange their own smaller awards evening to celebrate the 2021 championship competitors’ success. Both Hillclimb and Sprint championships share some competitors, so it was decided to run a joint awards evening in Armagh City Hotel on Saturday 18th June. With 80+ people attending, this was a great chance for them to have a social evening out to have a bit of fun and a meal together while celebrating their individual successes for the previous year’s motorsport. This also was a…
Saturday 18 June, 2022 was the date of the 2021 SW Adair Tyres Northern Ireland Sprint Championship prize giving and Night of Champions in the Armagh City Hotel. Sadly, due to Corona Virus restrictions in place in January of this year and then the lack of suitable dates in such a hectic motorsport calendar, the 2021 SW Adair Tyres Northern Ireland Sprint Champions had to wait until mid-June to receive their prizes. Despite the wait, a huge crowd of award winners attended the evening which was a massive success. It was the first chance since before Covid for all the…
On Sunday 22nd May, in Mount Stewart House & Gardens the Ulster Automobile Club displayed 10 Cars and 10 Motor Bikes representing each of the decades to celebrate this historic anniversary. This is a significant milestone in the history of Road Races because this Act facilitated the closing of public roads for the purposes of racing. Currently some of the most famous uses of this legislation include the North West 200, Tandragee 100 and Armoy Road Races for motorcycles. Special thanks to Will Corry Senior who arranged all the motorbikes and to Ray McCullough the Dromara destroyer for his appearance…
Over the next three days, St Anne’s Square, Belfast, is host to the Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0% ‘IL PITSTOP’ event featuring the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team to whom the Italian beer is a partner. The event, which opens to the public on Friday 17th June from 1500hrs until 2100hrs, will continue on Saturday 18th from 1200hrs to 2100hrs, before concluding at 1800hrs on Sunday 19th with the attraction open from 1200hrs. Entry to the experience, which affords you to ‘Feel the Passion Inside’ with an intimate up-close and personal feel to an F1 racing garage, is open…
As someone who is knocking on the doors of 40 years of age, when the mention of a hot hatch is brought to the table, I automatically reminisce about the Peugeot 205 GTI, Volkswagen’s Golf GTi and Vauxhall’s Nova GSI. These hot hatch glory days lived into the noughties with Citroen’s Saxo VTS, Honda’s Civic Type R and Renault’s Clio 172 Cup, with all of the aforementioned offering a raw driving experience best enjoyed at 11/10ths. All of them proved they’re worth between the rally stages and racing circuits around the world, be it as a clubman road-going specification, or…
Saturday 14 May saw the area around Laurencetown echo to the sound of sweet mechanical music as the Trailertek Drumhorc Hillclimb returned to the Millers Oils Northern Ireland Hillclimb championship for the first time since 2019. With the sun splitting the trees in what was the warmest day of 2022 so far, sixty competitors lined up to attack the roads in the area of Drumhorc. With a “hill” which is more akin to a rally stage as it winds its way through the countryside using junctions, square lefts and even a daunting section past a fence, everyone was looking forward…
Desi Henry Seals Last Gasp Victory at Claudy-based Eakin Bros Stages Rally! Desi Henry and Paddy Robinson sealed a last-gasp victory at the Claudy-based Eakin Bros Brian James Trailers Stages Rally but it is Derek McGarrity who has burst into the lead of the McGrady Insurance NI Rally Championship after round three of the hotly contested series! McGarrity finished seventh overall at the event while a number of his main championship rivals, including pre-event series leader Jonny Greer, fell by the wayside. However, it was Kilrea’s Desi Henry who led the Maiden City Motor Club organised rally at the start.…