Two runs over the famous Cooley Mountain stage will be the centrepiece of this year’s Crowne Plaza Northeast Stages Rally, as organisers today announced details of their inaugural multi stage rally.
Organised and promoted by the Northeast Motorsports Club, the 2010 Crowne Plaza Northeast Stages Rally will take place in the Dundalk area over the July 4th weekend and incorporates 112 Km’s of classic stages in County Louth, with the rally headquarters based at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dundalk.
After completing a low speed reconnaissance of the stages on Saturday July 3rd the crews will tackle the 7 stage event which starts from Dundalk Ice Dome at 9am on Sunday morning July 4th. The rally consists of competitive stages in the Tallanstown, Clogherhead and Cooley areas with the cars being serviced by their crews at Dundalk Ice Dome Car Park in the Dundalk Retail Park just off the N52 Dundalk by-pass.
This year’s event is a counting round of both the Loughransigns.com Midland’s East Rally Championship and the Honda Cup Ireland Championship and also includes a modified Challenge prize fund of €1000.
Event Clerk of the Course, Shane Briscoe said: “On behalf of the Northeast Motorsports Club it gives me great pleasure to welcome competitors and fans alike to the 2010 Crowne Plaza Northeast Stages Rally. This years rally is the first time the club has run a multi stage event since its affiliation in 1996 and great credit must go to the hard working members of the Motor club who have overseen the rally grow from its infancy as a single stage rally in 2000 to this years multi stage rally that we hope will become a real competitors favourite over the coming years.”
Briscoe is confident this year’s event is the first step in a long path to building a successful and exciting brand which can help market County Louth nationally.
“The positive feedback from residence along the rally route during the initial planning phase has been very encouraging which shows the great enthusiasm for motorsport in the northeast region and with the economic benefits that the rally brings through increased trade and bed-nights in the surrounding hotels, I am sure the event will be a huge success.”
The event title sponsor is The Crowne Plaza Hotel Dundalk and Siobhán McTigue, Director of Sales and Marketing at Crowne Plaza Dundalk said: “We believe that Crowne Plaza and the Northeast Stages Rally make a perfect partnership and we are looking forward to hosting what we believe will be a fantastic event for Dundalk and indeed for the region as a whole.”
Launching the event, the Northeast Motorsports Club have released the event regulations and Rally Guide which can be downloaded at www.nemc.ie or at www.rally.ie
Precise details surrounding the locations of each of the seven stages will be available in the Rally programmes, which will be available for purchase at local retailers in the days leading up to the rally. A full list of retailers will be available at www.nemc.ie
The Rally Stage sponsors are:
Stage 1/4/7 Tallanstown – Activ8 Energies, Carrickmacross, Co.Monaghan
Stage 2/5 Clogherhead – Briscoe Engineering Ltd, Termonfeckin, Co. Louth
SS 3/6 Cooley – Doran Motors. Carrickmacross Co.Monaghan
Associate sponsors of the Crowne Plaza Northeast Stages Rally 2010 include Dundalk Ice Dome, Dromad Hire, Dundalk Chamber and with thanks to Rallymaps, Finnabair Estates Ltd and Gerry Cumiskey VW Ltd.
– Credit: Supplied.