After a quiet year in 2020, the Motorsport Ireland PartsForCars.ie Irish Rallycross Championship returned in 2021 with a bang, where we saw some of the closest racing in many years across all classes.
Starting off the championship honours, Derek Tohill took the overall IRX championship win and with that IRL1 in his 600hp OMSE Ford Fiesta 4 wheel drive Supercar. Declan Kelly, also driving an OMSE built Fiesta pushed hard all year but just missed out on the top step after Derek took victory in the last SuperFinal of the year. Peter McGarry steered his Volvo C30 to 3rd place overall with some impressive drives against the elite of IRX machinery. Derek Tohill also took the Supercar class honours in ’21 with a clean sweep in all events, with Kelly finishing 2nd and Tommy Graham only a whisker behind in 3rd.
With some close racing all year, the Modified class went down to the wire. Victory could have gone to any one of four drivers heading into the last round in Mondello Park. After all was said and done it was Philip Kelly (Toyota MR2) who reigned supreme taking the win in the final and with that the championship, narrowly beating Peter McGarry (Volvo C30) by a single point with Lloyd Spendlove close by in 3rd. The lads battled hard all year, and the Modified class is certainly a race not to miss heading into 2022.
Jake Sullivan took the Buggy class in style by taking 3 wins out of a possible 5 events throughout the year. Jake was chased down by 2nd place finisher Padraig McHale who managed to take the win on the last day. 3rd place went to Se Óg Martin after a string of 2nd place finishes throughout the year. The buggy class has gone from strength to strength in recent years and we have seen grids increase to over 20 buggies towards the sharper end of the season. 2022 looks to be a huge year for these screaming missiles with 3 full grids ready to take to the track for Round 1 of the IRX 2022 Championship on Sunday, February 13th.
The Fiesta Zetec class was a titanic battle all season, with Micheal Ryan eventually taking the honours, but it could have easily gone to Ben Mullins (2nd) or Christopher Grimes Jr. (3rd) after the lads put on a great show of racing talent throughout all the events. These guys are no strangers to each other having raced together in the Junior class in previous years.
Loughlin Farrell took his first Junior Rallycross title after a very consistent season in car number 839; a race number used for many years by his father Damien. Loughlin now moves onto the senior Fiesta class for 2022.
Despite COVID-19 putting to bed any chances of us holding an official IRX awards ceremony after the end of the 2021 season, we are still attempting to plan one for a suitable time over the coming months, however, we wanted to well and truly commend our 2021 IRX Championship and individual class champions and front-runners before we get things underway once again this Sunday in Mondello Park. Don’t forget that tickets for this Sunday’s 2022 season opener are available now on the Mondello Park website by clicking here and for full event information, check out our Round 1 event page by clicking here.
