No driving licence but still a top road racer

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

It’s something to say you were one of the fastest teenagers in a car in Ireland in 2013 – if not the fastest – and you still don’t have a full driving licence. Yet, that is an accomplishment 17-year-old Derrydonnell motorsport champion Dylan Curley can well and truly be proud of.

In 2013, Curley won the Ginetta Junior Ireland racing series. This included claiming the Allied Irish Cup, which is presented to the fastest junior. In securing the silverware, the Presentation College Athenry student became only the second ever Galway driver after Mattie McNamara in 1973 to achieve the feat.

“The Allied Irish Cup is also called the Leinster Trophy and it is probably the event that everyone wants to win,” says Curley, whose father Tom and uncle Paul would be well-known on the rally circuit. “There were two races every weekend in my championship and the Cup was the last weekend of racing.

“All I had to do was finish second in the first race [on the final weekend] to take the championship but the Allied Irish Cup is something you always want to win. So, we went for it and it did pay off in the end. It was on the international track in Mondello Park which I love. It is a lovely track to drive.”

Although Curley went faster than he had all year, he says it was not a case of taking any risks. “I just feel very comfortable on that track. Even my dad and other people say I have a different style of driving compared to other drivers and the car looks a bit more settled going around and a lot cleaner.”

Then again, Curley has been around cars for some time. When his dad began rallying a decade ago, he fell in love with motorsport. By the time Dylan was 11, he was karting and by the age of 15 he was competing in a Toyota Starlet in Rally Cross, hitting speeds of up to 80 miles per hour.

“Rally Cross is not that fast because they are only one-litre [engine] cars. The Ginetta go up to a top speed of 120mph,” he outlines. “It was through the Rally Cross though that I got approached one day to do a test in a Ginetta Junior car and that is where I started with the Ginettas. I was 15 at the time.”

In his first season in the Ginetta Junior Series, which caters for drivers between the ages of 14 to 17, Curley “was just on a learning curve”. He continues: “The first season I got two podiums and there was a lot of ‘itty bitty’ finishes. There were plenty of crashes too over the year but I still learned a lot.”

Indeed, the following season, 2013, Curley blew the rest of the field away. In the 12 rounds held over six weekends, he secured 12 pole positions and won nine of the 12 races – leading the championship from start to finish.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.