Mark Johnathon Lovell was a British rally driver. He won the 1986 British Rally Championship in a Ford RS200 Group B, the 1987 and 1988 Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, the 1988 International Dutch Rally Drivers' Championship and the 2001 SCCA ProRally Drivers' Championship in the United States. He also won the 2003 Pikes Peak Rally only two weeks before his death.
Stig Lennart Blomqvist is a retired Swedish rally driver. He made his international breakthrough in 1971. Driving an Audi Quattro for the Audi factory team, Blomqvist won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1984 and finished runner-up in 1985. He won his home event, the Swedish Rally, seven times.
The 1997 World Rally Championship was the 25th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season saw many changes in the championship. Most notably, Group A was partially replaced by the World Rally Car with manufacturers given the option which regulations to construct to. One inherent benefit to manufacturers by adopting WRC regulations was removing the need to mass-produce road-going versions of the cars that they competed with, under the previous rules for homologation. This meant that vehicles such as the Escort RS Cosworth and Subaru Impreza Turbo no longer had to be mass-produced for general sale in order to compete at World Championship level, and thus acting as a means of attracting increased competition and involvement by manufacturers. In the few years that follow, the Championship saw the added presence of WRC cars from companies such as Toyota, Hyundai, Seat, Citroën, and Peugeot, who would all compete under WRC regulations without having to manufacture equivalent specialised road cars for public sale. Both Ford and Subaru switched to WRC in 1997, except Mitsubishi who stayed with Group A to maintain the links to their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution road cars. Subaru's transition was much more gradual for similar reasons with the early Subaru Impreza WRCs still largely Group A in nature.
Bruno Thiry is a Belgian rally driver. He was born in St. Vith, Liège Province.
Russell Brookes was a British rally driver. He won the British Rally Championship with a Ford Escort RS1800 in 1977 and with an Opel Manta 400 in 1985. In 1978, he won the Rally New Zealand, a round of the FIA Cup for Drivers, the predecessor to the World Championship for Drivers. In the World Rally Championship, he finished on the podium of his home event, the RAC Rally, three times in a row from 1977 to 1979.
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 Circuit of Ireland International Rally is an annual automobile rally, which was first held in 1931 making it the third oldest rally in the world. The most recent event was held in 2023.
Eugene Donnelly is a rally driver from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who races in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.
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.
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.
Craig Breen was an Irish rally driver who last competed part time for the Hyundai team in the World Rally Championship (WRC). He won the 2012 Super 2000 WRC, scoring class wins in the Monte Carlo Rally, Wales Rally GB, Rally France and the Rally of Spain. Breen won the WRC Academy Cup in 2011, winning his first event at the 2011 Rallye Deutschland and sealing the championship with a win at Wales Rally GB. The Academy title going down to the last stage, with Breen and Estonian rally driver Egon Kaur ending the season, both on 111 points, Breen then won the title on count back of stage wins, 39 to 14. Breen won the 2021 Rentokil Historic Rally in Killarney, Kerry, Ireland in his BMW M3 E30.
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.
The 2020 FIA World Rally Championship was the forty-eighth season of the World Rally Championship, a rallying competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Teams and crews competed in seven rallies for the World Rally Championships for Drivers, Co-drivers and Manufacturers. Crews were free to compete in cars complying with various regulations, however, only manufacturers competing with World Rally Cars homologated under regulations introduced in 2017 were eligible to score points in the Manufacturers' championship. The championship began in January 2020 with the Rallye Monte-Carlo and concluded in December 2020 with Rally Monza. The series was supported by the WRC2, WRC3 and Junior WRC categories at selected events.
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.
The MSA British Rally Championship is a rallying series run over the course of a year, that comprises six tarmac and gravel surface events. 2020 was to be the 62nd season of the series. The season began in the forests of Wales on 8 February and was due to conclude on 19 September in Southern Scotland.
Billy Coleman is an Irish motorsport rally driver. Nicknamed Millstreet Maestro, Billy Coleman is one of Ireland's most successful motorsport rally driver and in twenty years of racing has claimed 29 victories, including a number of British Rally Championship and Irish Tarmac Rally Championship titles. He is the older brother of John Coleman who was a Gaelic footballer.
The Galway Rally, Galway International Rally is an annual motorsport tarmac rallying event held in Galway, Ireland. Promoted and organised by Galway Motor Club, the rally was first ran in 1971. The Galway International Rally is the oldest International rally in Ireland. It has hosted the European Rally Championship stage every year between 1975 and 1982. In 1978 the Galway International Rally hosted the opening stage of the first Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.
The 2021 FIA WRC2 Championship was the ninth season of WRC2, a rallying championship for organised and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile as the second-highest tier of international rallying. The category was open to cars entered by teams and complying with Rally2 regulations. The championship began in January 2021 with the Rallye Monte-Carlo and concluded in November 2021 with Rally Monza, and ran in support of the 2021 World Rally Championship.
Craig Breen 
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