Eventful opening day of rally Finland for the galway mini centre escort. Managed to take one of the notorious Finnish yumps too hard, but after what felt like a lifetime in the air we got away with just a very twisted sumpguard. The lads managed to fix everything up again and we have been inside the top 5 all day including 2nd quickest on the WRC super special in lahti this evening.
Leaving us provisionally 4th overall and 2nd fia and leading our class. Big push in the morning to try and make 15secs back to win the fia.
More updates in the morning

Just waiting to get going in rally Finland 2011. Car ready, crew ready so fingers crossed.

Day one of recce finished, stages are amazing. Clean fast and flowing. Some really huge jumps to look forward too. We had 60km road section between two stages and all was on gravel roads which would put irish main roads to shame.
The escort went very well at the test in asikkala today. Few suspension Tweeks and all was working well. Pace is going to be crazy.We even found a group of galway lads spectating, who u can see in the photos.
3stages left to recce in the morning while the lads put the car thru scrutiny. Rally for us starts 9am Friday.

Bozinge in belgium has been converted into the historic rally Ypres service park. The galway mini centre team have arrived back from a loop of 4 stages lying 8th overall, 4th fia and 2nd in class.
We made a mess of a very tricky spectator stage in the French city ville. We dropped 40second so we are now behind ernie Graham in 4th fia so we will just try hold this position and get the championship points. Said Forde.
3stages left in the last loop.

Regroup in at the IRC service park in ypres galway men Frank cunningham and Ross forde have really put their heads down and put two top 5 times on the board. They have climbed up to 3rd overall in the fia, leading the class and 8th overall in the rally after the first loop.
We are goin well today but it’s a long rally yet and this sport has a funny way of turning your day upside down just when you think it’s going your way. Said cunningham.
We are having a nightmare trying to pick the right tyres but we will try keep our heads down and try stay out of trouble.

More later

The Galway pair of Frank cunningham and Ross forde had a nightmare opening evening to the 19th Ypres rally in Belgium.
We had the brakes set all to the front wheels by mistake in the first stage and on the first junction we had a huge moment and ended up in the ditch, that happened a few times in that stage until we figured out the problem commented Frank.
We went ok in the second but brakes were still not right as I Changed them too much to the rear.
Final stage went ok thank god and we were lying 13th overall and 5th fia with 4th and 3rd still in touch.
Lots of room for improvement tomorrow.

Start ramp at bozinge in rally Ypres 2011. Galway mini centre team of Frank cunningham and Ross forde who are lying 3rd overall in the FIA European historic championship are all set to tackle the 3 evening stages of Ypres 2011 rally.
The Team engineer Ray cunningham has said that the car has a new engine since there win in Greece and is looking for a good result here this weekend.
More updates to follow.
End

Test stage over and done so it’s scrutiny at 7:30am and rally starts 6pm. Here is a few videos and pics from today.

Recce finished for the 19th Ypres rally 2011. Day off today to prep the rally car which arrived from Ireland late last nite. Scrutiny at 7:30am in the morning.
This evening is the IRC shakedown so I’ll put up some videos and pics.

Recce has kicked off this morning in the town of Leper. All crews covering 4 stages on schedule. Stage 6 and stage 7 are 25km and 29km in length so are going to be a Huge test. The usual suspects (Ray, Mairt, Gary) from Galway Mini Centre are due to leave Ireland in the small hours of the morning with service van and rally car heading for dublin then the Uk and onto france and Belgium.