Heading the field

Heading the field

Crossmolina’s Killian Duffy will be in the first car off on Sunday next

PREVIEW
Daniel Carey

GOING into the final stage of the Cavan Stages Rally last May, Aaron McHale and Killian Duffy trailed Patrick Elliott and Paul Goodman by seven seconds. Such a gap is generally unassailable in motorsport, but McHale and Duffy weren’t giving up.
“We decided that if there was a delay at the start, we’d just tell everyone we were going to settle for second,” Duffy told The Mayo News. “But we had other plans. There was no way we were settling for second! We really put everything on the line. We had huge moments where it could have been all over, maybe for the year, but we got away with it and were delighted to win.”
One of those ‘huge moments’ came when they were going flat out in sixth gear approaching a crest. They took a slightly wrong line over it and got caught on the bank on the left hand side of a road lined with trees. But the car gathered itself up again, they survived the scare without a blip, and went on to win the race by a single second.
For Duffy and McHale, it was the narrowest of four successive victories en route to winning the Dunlop National Rally Championship. Not bad going for a duo who had only teamed up in two previous events. It helps, co-driver Duffy admits, that his sister and his driver are engaged!
“We’d be spending the whole weekend together, so you have to get on with someone,” he explains. “And we can criticise each other and neither of us get offended. We won the National last year, fair enough, but we know we can improve in lots of areas.”
In ‘Any Given Sunday’, Al Pacino famously spoke about the inches which make the difference between winning and losing. For Duffy, preparation is crucial. The week before a rally, he checks what amount of fuel to put in the car. He goes to Gráinne and Aaron’s house in Kilcullen for dinner on Wednesday, and they finalise their arrangements for the following weekend. He touches base with Tom Gahan (Colin McRae’s former mechanic) and the service crew.
On the Friday, they head for Tipperary and give the car a run out, before heading on to wherever the rally is taking place. Saturday is all about the ‘recce’ - the ‘dry run’ through the route where Duffy takes notes on the road which he will call out to McHale on the Sunday. They go for a meal on the Saturday night, meet up with their growing band of supporters, and head to bed early before the race begins on Sunday morning. Their success last year meant waiting for quite a few prize-giving ceremonies, and often it was midnight or 1am before they got back to Dublin. Duffy is a teacher at a secondary school in Tallaght, and the vagaries of his timetable mean he’s in at 9am every Monday morning. No rest for the wicked!
It can be difficult, he admits, but he has the support of colleagues, who cover classes for him if necessary on a Friday afternoon. The school principal allowed him a week off in November to compete in Rally Ireland, ‘a fabulous event’ which has introduced motorsport to a whole new audience.
“If you tell people you’re into rallying, the first thing they’ll mention is Rally Ireland. And then when you say you competed in it, you’ve a conversation that could last an hour! The crowds were unbelievable, and it was great to be a part of it.”
His dad John is still involved in Mayo and District Motorsport Club and will also be competing on Sunday. From the age of seven or eight, Killian would sit in the back of his father’s car on Saturday ‘recces’, listening to how the navigator called the notes. He later acted as co-driver for John in night navigation races, and began stage rallying in 2000 with James McGreal from Foxford. He drove himself in last year’s Mayo event, but next weekend, he’ll be in the passenger seat in the first car to leave the TF on Sunday morning. And then?
“I may have a couple of events coming up in the Middle East,” he says. “I used to navigate with a guy from Saudia Arabia, so I’ve been out there the whole way through college. The Abu Dhabi junior team … have a driver development programme for young drivers, so it’s nice to be part of it.”
From the Deel to the Gulf, it’s been some journey already. And he’s just getting into gear. On your marks …