Irish Rally Champion Donnelly unveils 2007 car on the Kumho stand

Triple Irish Tarmac Rally Champion Eugene Donnelly and co-driver Paul Kiely chose the stand of long-standing sponsor KUMHO TYRES for the official unveiling of their 2007 car at last week’s Autosport International Show (NEC, Birmingham, Jan 11-14).

The car in question is the ex-Petter Solberg Subaru Impreza S12 WRC, which will be jointly run for the team by Subaru supremos Prodrive and McGeehan Motorsport, who prepared Donnelly’s all-conquering Toyota Corolla. The prime sponsors will be KUMHO and Esker Bus & Coach. There will also be support from KUMHO’s distributor in Northern Ireland, Modern Tyre Service.

Not only do Donnelly and Kiely hope the Impreza will sweep them to an unprecedented fourth consecutive Irish Tarmac title, but give them a serious crack at Rally Ireland – the new event that will see the World Rally Championship (WRC) come to Ireland for the first time ever.

Said Eugene Donnelly, “The advent of a WRC round in our home country is incredibly exciting and will give us a chance to compete head to head with the world’s best. In fact it seems we’ll be doing so from the first round of the Tarmac Championship, as Ford have entered Marcus Gronholm for that and there’s even talk of reigning World Champion Sebastian Loeb competing in the second event and thereby getting a feel for the terrain in advance of Rally Ireland.”

Commented KUMHO’s Manager of European Motorsport Steve Thompson, “We are delighted to be supporting Eugene and Paul once again and wish them every good fortune in the Tarmac Championship. And, like them, we very much look forward to Rally Ireland and competing against the world’s premier rally teams.”

For information on the progress of the Donnelly/Kiely Impreza during the season, refer to kumhotyre.co.uk and donnellymotorsport.com