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,…
Author: Graham Baalham-Curry
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.…
A County Antrim couple are raising money by driving across the USA for Alzheimer’s Research UK because they have to remember those who may forget us – the adventure of Jim and Alan Magill, on a mammoth adventure. You may recognise the name Jim Magill, as I recently drove a car here in Northern Ireland that he had sourced for the Lane Motor Museum in the United States of America. That car was a Japanese KEI car, Honda s660 to be precise, but within that article I talked about Jim’s connection to the museum in Nashville, Tennessee and how he…
Wallace Menzies clearly demonstrated why he is the current Avon Tyres British Hill Climb Champion by setting the Fastest Time of the Day on the Simon Brien Residential UAC Craigantlet Hill Climb, netting him the News Letter Trophy. His driving skills also resulted in him collecting the Dunlop Trophy for his Class 15 win and taking a ‘clean sweep’ by winning both rounds 3 and 4 of the Avon Tyres British Hill Climb Championship held on closed public roads on the outskirts of Belfast. Nichola, Wallace’s wife received the Noble Trophy for the second year in a row as the…
The Simon Brien Residential UAC Craigantlet Hill Climb was host to the second round of the Millers Oils ANICC Hill Climb Championship which provided great excitement and thrilling drives from our local entrants. Running alongside two rounds of the British Hillclimb Championship, Tim Woodside from Dunadry in his Pilbeam MP82 was the fastest local driver up the hill, gaining maximum NI Championship points, with a run of 48.71s, just over 4 seconds adrift from the event winner and 12th place overall, well done Tim! Graham Thompson was only 1.19 seconds slower than Woodside in his GTR Turbo in 14th place…
NORTH DOWN COMES TO LIFE WITH OLD FORD’S FOR CHARITY… The McKee Clock Arena in the seaside town of Bangor came to life on Saturday 23 April thanks to the Capri Club Northern Ireland. In aid of Friends of the Cancer Centre, the event, which is strictly Ford vehicles only, with the exception of a few other interesting classics should they attend, attracted in excess of 250 vehicles. Having been forced to run in autumn of last year, due to ongoing restrictions, the sun shone bright over Bangor Marina as the show returned to his usual spring date. Capri Club…