Archive News
Mechanic is a driving force behind autocross
Date Published: {J}
When it comes to speed over grass or gravel, Dave Fallon – one of the prominent campaigners on the autocross motor circuit over the last decade – is a master.
Just a quick search on Google and his name appears in racing reports from around the country – Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Westmeath, Cavan, Clare, Kerry and Cork – all underlining his status as a top competitor at the, by and large, non-mainstream sport.
Originally, Fallon’s chosen poison was rallying, having been introduced to the sport by Kieran Burke, a Galway City garage owner who he went to work for in the early 1990s.
“He was into motorsport and when I was working for him, he used to do a bit of work on rally cars and that,” begins Fallon. “So he got me into it.
“I was with him for two and a half, almost three years. Then he got a job as an insurance assessor and he ended up closing up his garage. I was kind of stuck for a job, although I had intended to go working for someone else. At the time, jobs were scarce, but then I started doing a little bit of work for myself, and then a little more, and before you knew it, I had a lad employed.”
Over the ensuing years, Fallon built up his business on the Athenry Road, Craughwell – today, he employs five others – while all the time, his curiosity for motorsport continued to grow.
“I bought my first rally car then around 1999 and I did a bit of rallying for a couple of years. I didn’t do a huge amount of rallying – maybe 10 or 12 rallies including the Galway Rally. I had a few class wins and things like that, but nothing special.
“Then I just got out of it because I couldn’t afford it. I was trying to build up my business and get it going and with rallying you could never do that because it would eat up every bit of free time and money you had. It was like being on heroin or something.”
Indeed, Fallon – who undertook his last event, the Galway Summer Rally, in his Corolla in 2002 – maintains that “rallying is the ultimate buzz”. However, he reiterates the cost of running a vehicle can temper the enthusiasm somewhat.
“It takes a couple thousand of euro any day to run any sort of a car. You definitely could spend up to €4,000 a day and that wouldn’t be the top end of things. The boys at the top end would be spending, maybe, €20,000 or €25,000 a weekend. Those guys like Tim McNulty. So, when you put it into context like that, well . . .”
Given the adrenalin rush experienced by Fallon – who is determined to return to the rally circuit again someday – it was inevitable that he would yield to his yearning to revisit motorsport in some shape or form in the interim. This he did in the mid 2000s
“Cathal Hogan in Ballinasloe got me involved in autocross [events that take place on either a grass or gravel surface]. I just happened to be in his place one evening and I heard he had a real good autocross buggy, so I ended up buying his one.
“I did a few autocross events, and I won my second one, which was in Ballinasloe. That was the Galway Autocross in, I think, 2004. For my second day out, I was happy enough,” says the Craughwell mechanic.
Since then, Fallon has enjoyed success after success right across the country – rarely finishing outside the top four. In this time, he has taken multiple victories – both in best time of the day and in his respective class – at such events as the Midlands Autocross (2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010), Birr Autocross (2007), Munster Autocross (2009) and Galway Autocross (numerous occasions, including the 2011 event) to mention but a few. In truth, a modest Fallon is not the kind of guy who keeps a record.
That said, one of his more pleasurable wins came at Pallas Karting in Tynagh in 2006, when he won the rally sprint in his buggy.
“It [the buggy] is not really designed for that kind of racing but I won that. I beat a load of single-seater hill-climb type cars and they decided to ban me from racing in that event after that,” he smiles.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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