Mitchell & McCrudden win Mayo Forest Rally
Photo: Cian Donnellan
It was all smiles once more for Jason Mitchell & Paddy McCrudden as they raced to back-to-back victories in the 2025 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship, taking the spoils on a hugely popular Mayo Forest Rally and in doing so now jump into the lead of the Championship going into the mid-season break.
The opening Blanemore stage, a fast but short opener to the event, would see Andrew Purcell & Liam Brennan go fastest in their Ford Fiesta Rally2, but after a cancelled second stage it would be the 11.3km Sralagagh test that would see Mitchell & McCrudden fully unleash their Skoda Fabia RS Rally2, going fastest by over ten seconds and returning to mid-day service with the advantage.
The afternoon loop, on stages that the competitors absolutely raved about thanks to their brilliant surface and fast flowing nature, would see Jason Mitchell & Paddy McCrudden ever extend their lead, and they would return to Ballina as winners of the 2025 Mayo Forest Rally by 20.6 seconds ahead of Purcell & Brennan, with Niall McGonigle & Caolan McKenna taking third in a VW Polo GTi R5, just 0.6 seconds off second place.
With three maximum scores from the four rounds to date, it’s definitely advantage Jason Mitchell in the 2025 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship standings, but they know any slip up could see the Andrew Purcell or Stephen Dickson take advantage, a fine fourth place for Dickson has seen him now lie third in the standings, a point off Purcell. In the Navigators battle, Paddy McCrudden leads but is being chased by Liam Brennan and two former winners in Eamonn Creedon & Mark Wiley.
In the 2WD battle, it was a case of redemption, and standing up for the RWD crews against the rise of the young FWD chargers, as Damien Tourish & Domhnall McAlaney and Hugh McQuaid & Declan Casey made up for their retirements in Tipperary to do battle over the 45kms of action in Mayo, and for the first time this year it was Tourish & McAlaney who took the win, bringing their Historic spec Ford Escort Mk2 home 15.6 seconds ahead of McQuaid & Casey, with both machines wearing plenty of battle scars heading into a deserved summer break.
Just 8.7 seconds back from McQuaid, and finishing out the 2WD podium, were Cian Caldwell & Paul McPhillips, a remarkable season in the Peugeot 208 Rally4 continues as the result leaves Caldwell leading the 2025 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship 2WD standings at the halfway point, while he also holds the lead in Class 2 of the MI Junior Rally Series.
In J1000, it was drama right to the very again once again, as it always seems to be, with the result in Mayo changing in the final few miles. Once again this year it was heartbreak for Danny Brady & Darren O’Brien as their 7.7 second advantage going into the final stage evaporated when a driveshaft broke on their VW Up!
For a second event in succession, it was James McShea & Grace O’Brien that sat atop the podium as the crews returned to Ballina, they finished the day with five seconds to spare from the very impressive local crew of Adam Ronan & Simon Love, while Championship leaders Kyle Drury & Karl Egan made it a clean sweep of four podium finishes to date this year in third.
The 2025 Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship now goes into a summer break, but it won’t be long before the action kicks off again with the Jim Walsh Cork Forest Rally on August 10th, before moving North to Enniskillen for the Lakeland Stages on September 6th. The forests at night await competitors with a two-day Bushwhacker Rally in Omagh on September 19 & 20th, while its with great excitement that it can be announced that the Donegal Forest Rally will run again on November 8th, having been postponed at the start of the year due to storm damage.