M-Sport, organisers of the Fiesta SportingTrophy IE, have announced details for the 2008 Irish series. The calendar will see six high profile asphalt based events centred around the mainland Ireland rounds of the prestigious TROA Irish Tarmac Championship.

The series will once again begin with the Galway Rally in February. Competitors will then travel north of the border for the UAC Easter Rally in March before moving to the opposite end of the country for the Killarney Rally of the Lakes in May. The Shell Donegal Rally in June will make up round four while the Ulster National Rally, a new addition to the series, will be the penultimate round. The championship will once again finish with the Cork ‘20’ Rally in September.

The format of the FST section, for the majority of events, will remain the same as this year. Crews will be integrated into the running order on leg 2, seeing stage mileage of approximately 120 kilometres. The Ulster National Rally will however see a number of stages on the Friday evening before a full days competition on Saturday.

Crews will compete for prize money on each event of the series with the top eight sharing a total of €2925 per round and a guaranteed place in the ‘FST Shoot Out’, which will take place at M-Sport in December 2008.

M-Sport Business Development Manager, Andrew Wheatley said:
“After an exciting year in the Irish championship we have taken into consideration helpful feedback from teams in an effort to make next year’s series even more successful. We have kept the classic tarmac rallies and tried to reduce the ‘real’ costs of competing. This series now follows some of the best rallies in the world with some great stages at a very reasonable cost. We hope that this will attract new competitors from Ireland and some of the crews over from the UK, to experience the fantastic atmosphere and close competition that the Irish championship has to offer.”