Frank Kelly’s Evo Oops!

Frank Kelly has a huge fan base that follows his rally exploits and his very sideways ‘Baby Blue’ Escort around the country. So you can imagine their surprise when the Moy man announced that he was set to contest last weekend’s Fivemiletown Spring Rally aboard a four-wheel-drive Evo 8!

Frank’s Facebook page was flooded with comments but as it transpired, switching to the ‘dark side’ was also a shock to the system for ‘Fearless Frank’, who ended his rally in a bog on stage six. But that was after he had managed to set a string of fastest stage times which lifted him to third overall, having been as low as ninth as a result of a stage two puncture.

“The car was a bit of a revelation to be honest,” Frank told RallyForums.com. “I couldn’t get over the traction of it. Power wise there is no big difference but there are not a lot of brakes with the size and weight of the car.”

That didn’t seem to faze him during the early stages as he was immediately on the pace in the borrowed Conor McKenna car. He was second overall after stage one, only to drop down the order with a stage two puncture.

A string of fastest times followed and by the end of stage five, Kelly had climbed back into third overall. He was 15 seconds behind rally leader Enda McNulty and planned to have another charge through the sixth test in a bid to reel in the Impreza pilot when disaster struck.

“I just out-braked myself at a 5 left,” Kelly explained. “It was my own stupid mistake. We went three or four cars past the braking point. I wasn’t going to make it in a helicopter!”

“Before I knew it, we were heading the wrong way for the corner,” he continued. “We took the escape road but ended up in the bog. She rolled on to her roof and bounced back on her wheels. There is only some damage to the roof so we got away remarkably light.”

That certainly hasn’t dampened the Moy man’s enthusiasm. He hopes to be back in action at the West Cork Rally with his trusty Baby Blue!

One of our favourite images that we spotted!