15/10/2021
Déjà Vu Donagh Day: Update:
When the five-time Irish Tarmac Rally Champion Austin MacHale, rolls through the start arch at the Quay Car Park in Donegal Town on the 24th October there will be a very excited passenger beside him. The native of Mayo, who set the Irish rally stages alight for almost two and a half decades, will have his grandson Adam Kelly reading the route instructions on their twenty-five mile parade from Donegal Town to The Stables Motorsport Centre in the Frosses.
Adam will be no ordinary car, as his grandad will be using the ex-Marcus Gronholm Ford Focus ’06 WRC in which Adam’s uncle, Gareth MacHale, won the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship in 2010. The MacHale entry at number 3 will be one of many family affairs as fourth on the road will be Donagh Kelly, the patron of The Stables Motorsports Centre and an Irish National and Tarmac Champion, who will be with his son Eamonn. They will be in a 1989 BMW M3. Also in the top ten is the three-time Donegal International Rally winner Cathal Curley and his son Conor in a 1979 Ford Es**rt Mk II.
And the family theme goes on and on. Denis and Stuart Biggerstaff are in a special 2003 Subaru Impreza S9. Champions both, Denis a former British Rallycross Champion and his son a Northern Ireland Rally champion.Mike Dunnion will have Holly Dunnion alongside him in his 1978 Vauxhall Chevette HSR; Simon and Kelli Woodside are in a 1989 BMW M3; Alan and Bryan Jardine in their 1968 Mk I Es**rt Twin-Cam; Niall and William Creighton in a 1965 Lotus Cortina; Elgin and Jonathan Greer in an ex-works Mini Cooper S; Michael and his multiple Historic Rally Champion father Dessie Nutt, will be in the family Mini Cooper S; Richard and Melissa Hogg in their thundering V8 Rover SDi; Mark and Rory Doyle in their ex-Austin MacHale Toyota Celica ST185 and Mervin Johnston, another multiple Historic rally winner and his son Karlin, as always, a Mini Cooper S.
Grandads and grandsons, fathers sons and daughters, brothers, husbands and wives, Déjà vu Motorsport, the non-competitive day out that brings old friends and their cars together again is back on the road and promises to be a truly family affair.
