Galway Motor Club, organisers of the Safety Direct Galway International Rally are delighted with the announcement that Colm Quinn MINI will sponsor the McGeehan Motorsport WRC MINI in the 2012 event. Colm Quinn BMW will also sponsor 3 stages of the event.

Eugene Donnelly will be coming out of retirement for the 2012 Irish Tarmac Rally Championship starting in Galway, where he will drive the WRC MINI.

The event itself will be run over a new one day format with 10 stages, including the city centre Dyke Road stage, which was last run in 1998. There will then be 9 challenging stages in County Galway. Due to the new format and reduced entry fee, entries have flooded in and currently stand at over 140, which will make this event a fabulous start to the 2012 Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.

Alan Fair, Operations Director with Safety Direct commented, “We are thrilled that McGeehan Motorsport and Colm Quinn MINI have chosen the 2012 Safety Direct Galway International Rally to launch this fantastic car into the Championship”.

The Safety Direct Galway International Rally is the first major motorsport event annually in Ireland. Over the years the event has attracted entrants from England, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, the former Czechoslovakia, France, America, Gambia, Belgium, Arabia, Norway and Finland.

The event is one of the most popular in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, and has been it's first round since the series was founded in 1978. It is fully sponsored by Safety Direct and based in Galway's Clayton Hotel, and is supported by Failte Ireland.

It is a busy club - all volunteers - we organise one other stage rally each year, the popular Galway Summer Rally, and also a number of Sprints, a two day Hillclimb, an Autotest and various social events and charity fund raisers.

Galway Motor Club is very active in the promotion and development of Motorsport in Ireland, and supports Motorsport Ireland through active participation in it's various committees.