McHale takes in Bulldog for Rally of GB warmup

16 October 2001: Austin McHale heads to Wales this Saturday (October 20) for the Bulldog Rally, the Rathcoole driver taking in the fourth round of the ANCRO British National Rally Championship with the Toyota Ireland Corolla WRC in preparation for the Network Q Rally of Great Britain next month.

Seeded number 7, McHale and co-driver Brian Murphy (Athgarvon), are looking forward to the eight-stage gravel event and plan a test day with the Toyota Finance-supported Michelin-shod Corolla later this week before the car heads across the Irish Sea on Friday morning. The Bulldog Rally comprises approximately 70 stage miles with about 90 miles of linking roads.

The Corolla has been set up and the suspension fine-tuned for gravel stages since a test and media day last month and McHale is happy enough with the car, saying: "We expect the gravel stages in Wales to be fairly quick and flowing and equivalent to some of the stages in Wicklow. I would like to see us finish in the first five or even top three, and although I don't really know what the competition will be like, I expect it to be very strong particularly from drivers like Marcus Dodd."

He continued: "We cannot have any practice in Wales and have to rely on pace notes supplied by the Wolverhampton & South Staffordshire Car Club, which will be more along with lines of safety notes really. I've never done this rally but I've done events in Wales before, including the Welsh Rally, the last time being around 1988. I'm happy with the number 7 seed because I didn't want to run first on the road with no prior experience of this event and it's better to have three or four cars running ahead of us to see where the brake marks are and where the lie of the land is really."

McHale opted to compete on the two events and particularly the Rally of GB, an event he last did in 1986, primarily due to the shortage of events in Ireland this year, but also to compete on the event while the '99 specification Corolla remains competitive. He said: "The car is still competitive and while it may not have out and out speed, reliability is the major advantage. I'd like to be seeded in the early 30s for the event because the stages will cut up very badly after that, and realistically even after the first 10 cars they start to cut up."