The World Rally Championship is an international rallying series owned and governed by the FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the second oldest of the FIA's world championships after Formula One. Each season lasts one calendar year, and separate championship titles are awarded to drivers, co-drivers and manufacturers. There are also two support championships, WRC2 and WRC3, which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but with progressively lower maximum performance and running costs of the cars permitted. Junior WRC is also contested on five events of the World Rally Championship calendar.
Henri Pauli Toivonen was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a professional circuit racer.
Millstreet is a town in north County Cork, Ireland. As of the 2022 census, it had a population of 1,722.
Markku Allan Alén is a Finnish former rally and race car driver. He drove for Fiat, Lancia, Subaru and Toyota in the World Rally Championship, and held the record for most stage wins (801) in the series, until Sébastien Loeb overtook it at the 2011 Rally Catalunya. Alén's phrase "now maximum attack" became well-known.
M-Sport is a motorsport engineering company headquartered at Dovenby Hall near Cockermouth, United Kingdom. It is primarily known for entering the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) since 1997 in partnership with Ford, manufacturing race and rally cars, and providing parts and motorsport services to customers. The company has an automotive evaluation facility at its headquarters, and a second manufacturing facility in Kraków, Poland.
The Ford World Rally Team, also known as the Ford Motor Co. Team prior to 2005, is Ford Motor Company's full factory World Rally Championship team. In its current form, it has been a competitor since the 1997 season, when Ford Motor Company's motorsport arm selected the Malcolm Wilson Motorsport company to run its factory team, entering the Ford Escort World Rally Car. The new team took their first victory in the 1997 Acropolis Rally.
The Ford Escort RS Cosworth is a homologation special of the fifth generation European Ford Escort. It was designed to qualify as a Group A car for the World Rally Championship in which it competed between 1993 and 1998. It was available as a road car from 1992 until 1996. The powertrain was only fitted to this version of the Escort, a longitudinally mounted Cosworth YBT, a highly tunable turbocharged 2.0 L (1,993 cc) with a bore x stroke of 90.8 mm × 77 mm Inline-four engine which had an output of 227 PS in standard trim. Tuning companies have achieved power outputs in excess of 1,000 bhp.
The Donegal International Rally is an annual car race in County Donegal, Ireland. It is a well-established Irish annual rally competition and has been one of the most important events in the Irish Rallying calendar. It has a reputation for being one of the country's most challenging rallies. Organized by the Donegal Motor Club, the annual event begins and concludes in Letterkenny.
The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in Europe.
John Coleman is an Irish retired Gaelic footballer. His league and championship career with the Cork senior team spanned nine seasons from 1970 to 1979.
The Cork 20 Rally or Cork 20 International Rally is an annual motorsport rallying event run by the Munster Car Club and held in the vicinity of Cork in Ireland. The Cork 20 Rally was first held in 1912, with the original event named because it spanned 20 hours.
Nicholas Whale is a British racing driver. He currently competes in historic rallying and FIA historic saloon racing events. He runs Iconic Auctions, Classic Car Auctions, Automotive Auctions and Nick Whale Motorhomes. He was a main board director of both the BRDC and the MSA and also a trustee and a Director of the Midlands Air Ambulance.
The Irish Tarmac Rally Championship (ITRC) is the premier rallying series in Ireland. It is held annually and is promoted by the Tarmac Rally Organisers’ Association (TROA). The Championship takes place over seven events, based in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, using special stages, which are run against the clock, on closed public tarmac roads.
Jolly Club was an Italian motor racing team, which competed in the World Rally Championship, the Sportscar World Championship, the European Touring Car Championship, the BPR Global GT Series, and briefly in the Formula One World Championship, along with several domestic championships, it was mainly connected to brands like Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Ferrari. It was created in 1957 in Milan by idea of Mario Angiolini, the team won several championships. The team's main sponsor was Italian gaming totalizer Totip so the cars used orange and green colors on their livery until the World Rally Championship 1996. They also had a lengthy association with alcoholic beverage company Martini & Rossi.
Tim McNulty of County Meath, Republic of Ireland is a rally driver. Rallying in his Subaru Impreza S12B WRC, McNulty in the same 2011 season won both the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship and Ireland’s Dunlop National Rally in a historic motorsports first. In anticipation of the Todd’s Leap Ulster Rally earlier in the season, fellow rally driver Derrick McGarrity stated of McNulty “Tim is always a hard man to beat, very competitive and very committed, and he should have a slight advantage with his S12 Subaru which has the edge in power over the S11 I’m driving this time,”
The Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship is an auto racing Rallycross series, running in the United Kingdom. From 2020, the championship became known as the Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy presented by Cooper Tire.
John Joseph Campion was an Irish-American entrepreneur. In 1987, he founded Showpower, Inc., a California company that provided portable generators for the Rolling Stones, U2, Kiss and AC/DC. Campion served as chairman and chief executive officer of APR Energy plc.
The West Cork Rally, Clonakilty Park Hotel West Cork Rally is an annual motorsport tarmac rallying event held in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland. Promoted and organised by Cork Motor Club, the rally began in 1977 and has run on or near St. Patricks Weekend ever since with just a few exceptions. It is, according to a book about the rally's early history, an "important local cultural and economic event".
The National Forestry Rally, Motorsport Ireland National Forest Rally is a rallying series in the Republic of Ireland. It consists series of events, organized by a different motor club representing the region.
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Jim Porter