ALMC Stages Rally

Entries for the 2013 ALMC Stages Rally which takes place on Sunday 7th July are now open with full regulations for the event available from the club. This year’s stages rally marks the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the ALMC Motor Club and will for this year’s rally move to a new headquarters at the Dunboyne Castle Hotel, in Co. Meath with the event taking place a week earlier than in previous years on the 7^th July. This year’s rally is yet again a counting round of the highly popular Get Connected REIS UK Asphalt Rally Championship, with the Loughran Signs Midlands East Rally Championship counting the ALMC event and the Citroen C2 championship making a return. The rally will feature nine stages located in County Meath with competitors take to the narrow lanes on a variety of stages that will test all levels of rallying ability, all under the watchful eye of new Clerk of the Course Raymond Scullion. The motor club has linked up with Dunboyne Motor Club for the event with the Dunboyne team providing marshals and officials for the event focusing in particular on special stage one.

2012 ALMC Stages Rally Winner Melvyn Evans in his Subaru Impreza WRC

Work on the event has been well underway since before Christmas, there are lots of changes with a new headquarters, service park and stages so the team are very busy. "Enquiries about the rally have already started to flood in and we are expecting a larger number of crews to travel from the UK due to the interest in the championship and the opportunity to sample the Irish stages. The event as in other years will also feature a strong local entry. The event is the closest stages rally to Dublin and offers ease of access for travelling crews from Ireland and further afield we are hoping to start a maximum entry on the morning of the 7^th July" said Raymond Scullion COC at the launch of the event regulations.

The rally offers great value for money with entries costing just €499 and the opportunity for competing crews to feature on the dedicated TV coverage which will be shown on Motors TV and online following the event. The stages rally will feature classes for Historic and Junior competitors with them competing on the six stages of the rally at a reduced entry fee and there will be additional prizes on offer for the winner of the MkII and the Honda Challenge which was first featured on last year’s rally. The club are providing the opportunity to pay the entry fee on a stage payment basis, details of which can be found on the dedicated stages website www.almcstagesrally.com, there are several methods for submitting entries including the online entry system, details of which and a link to the electronic version can be found on the stages website or via the club website at www.almc.ie where regulations are also available to download.

The Regulations for the 2013 ALMC Stages Rally are now open and available to download 

                Click on PDF Logo                               Click below for Online Entry

ALMC are delighted to announce that their  2013  Stages Rally on July 7th,  will be based in its new HQ  at Dunboyne Castle Hotel, Dunboyne, Co Meath.

Hotel Accomodation Reservations

Competitors wishing to make accomodation reservations at Dunboyne Castle Rally HQ should  telephone the hotel directly on : +353 1 8013500. Do not use their online reservation system as you will not receive their preferential rally room rate. Package rates are available for 1 or 2 or 3 nights stay on the Rally Weekend.

Dunboyne Castle

Dunboyne Castle, originally a castle, later a fine Georgian house, was built as a seat for a branch of the "Butler Dynasty", the Lords Dunboyne. It later passed to the Mangan family and was the seat of Simon Mangan, HM Lieutenant for County Meath in the 1890s and 1900s. The House was sold in 1950 and became the Good Shepherd convent, in which nuns used to live until the closing of the convent in the 1990s due to building damage. A partial amount of the building had been dismantled. In 2006, the convent was sold and converted into a hotel.

Motor Racing

Dunboyne was also a motor racing venue between 1958 and 1967 for both cars and motorbikes. The racing circuit was a 4 mile long triangular shaped circuit with a combination of fast straights and hairpin bends. The start/finish line was in the centre of Dunboyne village and the racing circuit itself consisted of public roads around the village. During these years races such as the Leinster Trophy, Dunboyne Trophy and Holmpatrick Trophy were held. The Dunboyne Motor Club have revived the spirit of this era with an annual reunion in the village bringing together many of the cars and bikes that raced on the circuit. The 2013 "Spirit of Dunboyne" Festival of Motorsport event will take place on the 28th and 29th of September

             Alec Poole leads Lionel Mayhan into Dunboyne

              John Sparrow's Cobra enters Dunboyne 1965.

 ( Photos courtesy of "DUNBOYNE 1958-1967" , Available from   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  )

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Melvyn Evans and co driver Aled Davies in a Subaru Impreza WRC S12B won the 2012 City North Hotel backed ALMC Stages Rally by one minute and twenty eight seconds from James Belton with Mark Glennerster also in a Subaru Impreza WRC. Evans who led the rally from start to finish recorded fastest time on six of the special stages and was never troubled by second place driver Simpson who’s Impreza is run by Evan’s Motorsport team. Stephen Simpson and Patrick Walsh in the third of the Evans Motorsport cars were locked out the top three bring their Impreza WRC home and unexpected third overall. Stephen who ran in fourth for most of the rally was gifted third overall when Damian Cole and James Morgan hit trouble on the final stage when the fly by wire on the throttle of their Ford Focus WRC05 started to give trouble with the Welsh crew losing over a minute of the final stage to finish the event fourth overall.

 Melvyn Evans Winner 2012 ALMC Stages Rally

Fifth place went to twenty year old Christopher Armstrong and Tommy Clinton in their Ford Escort following an outstanding drive in only their third outing in the car. In sixth were David Armstrong and Damien Fleming in their Ford Escort, a late entry for the event David has had good fortune on the ALLMC stages in the past but on this occasion could not match the pace of Christopher’s Escort in fifth. Stephen Cullen with Seamus O’Grady calling the notes was the highest placed ALMC Motor Club member to finish the rally brought his Subaru Impreza home an excellent seventh overall and recorded his first Group N win on tarmac, Stephen who has been concentrating on the forestry championship this year showed how his time in the car has really paid off with the production class win. Lloyd Hutchinson and Willie Fitzpatrick finished in eight overall a remarkable result for them in the Mini, Lloyd challenged Stephen Cullen in the group N machine particularly on stage five when a heavy rain shower soaked the stage. Liam Bowhan and Ged Kennedy in their Toyota Starlet finished in ninth overall moving into the top ten on the final loop of three stages, the top ten was rounded out by Paul Clarke and Gary Copperthwaite in their Ford Escort Mk2.

 “It has been a fantastic day’s rallying and the club are delighted to have had so many crews attend the event from the UK championship, it was by far the best UK entry we have had since we became a part of the championship. An event like this takes the hard work of a very large group of volunteers, which without their help and effort could not take place, thanks to all the marshals, officials, sponsors, residents and competitors who all played their part in the success of the rally” commented Clerk of the Course Noel Devlin at the finish of the event at the City North Hotel.

Early retirements from the event include John Stone and co driver Rob Fagg in the Skoda Fabia WRC who never made it to the start of SS1 when the turbo in their car expired on the road section, an early turbo problem put John out of the rally in 2010 on the first stage. Top seed Eugene Donnelly in the Sligo Pallets backed Toyota Corolla WRC stopped his car towards the end of the opening stage when his engine cried enough. Washington James and co driver Liam Brennan in the Darrian T90 GTR also retired from the rally, they left the road on the scrapmycar.ie sponsored stage one. The UK crew of Simon Chapman and Tony Graham retired their Austin Metro with a centre differential problem at the end of the opening loop of three stages. Adam Clews with Peter Williams alongside on the notes only managed about one metre of the first stage when their Ford Puma broke a shaft on the start line. Joe Connolly and John J Connolly in the Red Mills backed Ford Escort pulled out of the rally due to an electrical problem; they managed to rectify the problem at service and then ran as a 00. PA Bellew and ALMC’s Andres Reid in their Ford Escort crashed out on stage two both the crew were OK but the car will need some work. Third place driver following the first loop of stages Kerry man Thomas Fitzmaurice withdrew from the rally at service as his co driver Fionn Foley took ill with a stomach bug.