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.