Irish rally crew Daniel Barry & Martin Brady travel this week to compete on the prestigious Rallye Monte Carlo, arguably one of the worlds most famous sporting events, and in its 78th year.

This is the duo’s first event as reigning Mitsubishi UK Evo Challenge champions, and they have set their 2010 sights on tackling selected rounds of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC). The IRC visits 10 countries over 12 rallies, quickly becoming the most exciting and innovative rally championship in the world at this time.

The crew will continue to drive their 2009 championship winning Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 9, prepared by Daniel and his team back home in Co Wexford, Ireland. This is undoubtedly the biggest event the crew and team have embarked on, but one they are looking forward to.

Daniel is conscious that Monte Carlo is a difficult and varied challenge, with over 400 competitive kilometres, most of which will be on snow, slush and black ice over the twisty French Alpine passes. Daniel commented “Just getting to the finish of the rally will be a satisfying result in itself for us, I know that it’s an event unlike any other that we have tackled before so I’m hoping that a cautious approach will give us the chance to learn the roads, avoid some of the dangers and get to the finish”

It is a big team effort for the family based operation with no less than 12 people travelling to the event to assist Daniel and Martin in many roles, from working on the car to catering and time management. Included in this back room team are friends and fellow competitors Craig Breen and Karl Atkinson, also travelling from Ireland as the Barry Motorsport ice note crew. 

Ice note crews are permitted to travel the route just over an hour before Daniel and Martin arrive at competitive speeds, marking any newly formed ice or snow which may have appeared since the pre-event reconnaissance of the stages, 3 days ago, when Daniel will have made his event pace notes. This is a vital part of the Rallye Monte Carlo as weather conditions in the mountains are changeable at best, so to have the most up-to-date information is crucial.

The event starts on Tuesday evening with a prologue stage over Col de la Machine, the results of this stage determine the starting positions for stage one of the event on Wednesday, quite simply its ‘fastest first’. The event will then move over 15 special stages with the first two days being based in the city of Valance before moving to the town of Monte Carlo for the last marathon day starting at 6am on Friday in Valence and finishing at 2am on Monte Carlos prestigious Quai Albert.

Regular updates and photos will be available on the team website www.barrymotorsport.com and Facebook users can keep up-to-date throughout the days of the event on the “Barry Motorsport” page.

For further information on the IRC – www.ircseries.com
For Further information on the Rallye Monte Carlo – www.acm.mc
Listen on World Rally Radio – www.wrc.com