ORGANISERS of next year’s Modern Tyres Ulster Rally have announced it is to return to a two-day format, with all but one stage being carried over for the penultimate round of the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.
Across the two legs on Friday, August 15 and Saturday, August 16, competitors will tackle more than 100 miles, with a proportion of these including popular night stages.
The decision to overhaul Northern Ireland Motor Club’s showpiece event for 2025 follows extensive – and broad-ranging – discussions with teams, drivers and co-drivers in the days and weeks that followed this year’s rally.
Wayne Turkington – who remains in situ as the Ulster Rally Clerk of the Course – said: “I am pleased to confirm that we are returning to a two-day format in 2025, with more than one hundred stage miles planned – approximately 50% for each day of this popular tarmac meeting.
“The current rally plan contains several completely new stages that are going to be mixed with some that have not been used for many years, so that will really add to the challenge. This decision is influenced by the positive feedback we received from crews this year,” he continued.
On top of being a round of the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, the Ulster Rally is also going to welcome crews from the prestigious FIA European Rally Trophy, and for the fifth year in a row, is being sponsored by leading tyre supplier and car parts business, Modern Tyres.
On the decision by Modern Tyres to return as the headline sponsor, Turkington said: “The entire organising team is once again delighted to have the support of Modern Tyres, and we plan to be based at their world-class warehousing facility in Newry next August.”
This summer’s Ulster Rally was won by the Irish pairing of Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin – a result that paved the way for them to wrap up the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship’s Fisher Memorial Perpetual Trophy for the second time. Their first title was sealed back in 2016.
Thousands of local fans lined the route in largely settled conditions to witness the Ford Fiesta Rally2 team-mates triumph by fifteen seconds after 10 stages and eighty-three competitive miles from the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 of Callum Devine and Noel O’Sullivan.
Josh Moffett and Andy Hayes enjoyed one of their best performances of the year in the cross-border campaign by rounding out the podium spots in third place in their Michelin-shod Citroen C3 Rally2, albeit a minute and fifty-six seconds in arrears of the winners.
