Eugene Donnelly

Motorsport: Donnelly carries on his title chase at the double
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Eugene Donnelly

THIS promises to be a crucial weekend for Eugene Donnelly in his bid to become rally champion on both sides of the border.

On Saturday the Maghera driver climbs on board his Toyota Celica for the Dogleap Rally at Limavady before immediately heading south to Clonmel where on Sunday he will drive a WRC Subaru in the Tipperary Stonethrowers Rally.

They will be events 16 and 17 in an extraordinary odyssey which has seen him win 10 times and challenge for three championships.He eventually halted his pursuit of the Toshiba Tarmac title, despite lying joint second, to focus on the Irish national and Northern Ireland championships.

"It was impossible to go on at this rate so I had to sit down and decide what the priorities were.And being sensible about it, I decided to let the Tarmac championship go because it was unlikely I could win," he explained.

Donnelly also holds second place in the other two championships but it is just his luck that rounds of both fall on successive days this weekend.

But he is used to that and, indeed, earlier in the season he crashed out of one on the Saturday and phoned from the hospital to confirm that he would still be contesting the other the next day - which he won!

Donnelly starts Saturday's Dogleap Rally at No.2 behind NI championship leader Denis Biggerstaff and will also start at No.2 in Clonmel where the No.1 position is vacant in memory of multi winner of the Stonethrowers event, Frank Meagher, who was killed last year.
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Donnelly has also scored three wins in the NI championship but trails Biggerstaff by four points.