MIJRS - 2024 Season Review

With record participation numbers, the debut of an exciting new class and battles that went down to the wire across the field, the 2024 Motorsport Ireland Junior Rally Series (MIJRS) played a massive role once again in the development of the next generation of future Irish Rally stars.

A mixed-surface series, the MIJRS is aimed at young drivers aiming to make a career for themselves through Rallying, with the victors at the end of the season vying for lucrative funding packages from the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy totaling up to €70,000 across the classes, access to Academy development courses and a coveted Billy Coleman Award nomination.

Contested over eight events split between the Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship and the Triton National Rally Championship, with additional Rally Sprint events for J1000 crews who cannot compete on Tarmac events, the series encourages a new generation of talent to gain vital experience in a real mix of events across the season.

Class 2

The race for Class 2 honors looked set for a final day showdown, but we were sadly denied the spectacle as a late withdrawal by Tommy Moffett would see Craig Rahill claim a deserved MIJRS title having lead for the majority of the season that began perhaps not as strongly as hoped for the Cavan star.

Heading to the opening round in Killarney, all eyes were firmly on a magnificent field of seven drivers ready to do battle over the Gravel tracks east of the event HQ, with an astonishing twelve drivers in total registering for the Class in 2024. First blood would go to Kyle McBride as he claimed victory in his Peugeot 208 Rally4, but we would not see him again for the rest of the season.

Victories in Rounds 2 & 3, the Mayo Stages and Carrick-on-Suir Forest rallies, would see Dylan Eves make a real early season charge for the title, but sadly a retirement on Round 5, the Tipperary Stonethrowers Rally, would be the last time we would see the Donegal youngster although he had already at that point done enough to retain third place at the season’s end.

Tommy Moffett had made the step from J1000 straight into a Rally4 Ford Fiesta just before the opening round, but any thoughts of easing into the new machine were quickly dispelled as the stage times began to come in. Having never competed before on a Tarmac event, the MIJRS campaign brought with it huge learning, culminating in victory in Round 8, the Galway Summer Rally, and a very fine second place overall finish in the standings.

While Moffett and Eves mixed it amongst the front runners at times during the season, Craig Rahill was for a long time the person to catch. Three wins in a row in the heart of the season pushed the MI Rally Academy liveried Ford Fiesta Rally4 to the top of the standings, and the title would be secured on the final day in Clare as a second place finish left him a whopping eleven points clear of his closest rival, and with it duly claimed the Billy Coleman Nomination and MI Academy backing for another season.

Class 2A

Introduced in 2024 as a way to encourage drivers to explore a more affordable route into Homologated machinery when making the step up from J1000 or in the early days of their careers, Class 2A became a three-way fight right from the off amongst a trio of exciting J1000 graduates in Ford Fiesta R2 & R2T’s.

Ciara Duggan would have her finest hour to date claiming the class win on the Carlow Stages Rally, but victory on the Galway Summer Rally, the final Tarmac event of the year, saw Jack Kennedy pip Ciara to claim second place in Class 2A.

While Duggan & Kennedy had been nip and tuck all year, the true star of the Class 2A battle was Jack Harris, the Donegal youngster wrapped up the title with rounds to spare on the Cork Forest Rally, but returned to really affirm his dominance in Clare, with it claiming a fifth victory of the season, support up to the value of €10,000 as part of the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy the following year and a nomination for the Billy Coleman Award shortlist!

Class 2A is set to be incredible exciting once again in 2025 as a number of new J1000 Graduates have committed to the class having bought cars, while 2024 champion Harris is moving on to Class 2 machinery for the season ahead.

J1000

The busiest class of all without doubt this year has been in J1000. Competing over a different calendar to the rest of the MIJRS field, their MIJRS battle closed with the Laois Gravel Rallysprint. Open to drivers between 14-17 years of age, this year saw the field tackle all four rounds of the Sligo Pallets Forest Rally Championship, a pair of Gravel Rallysprints which included Imokilly and Laois, and a duo of tarmac Rallysprints in Wexford & Carrick-on-Suir.

For Danny Brady, the highs of victories in Killarney & Wexford will be mixed with the disappointment of retirements elsewhere, but the Cavan youngster will be proud to finish the year in third place and begin progressing thanks to the €1,000 in support for the year ahead from the MI Rally Academy.

David Travers at times felt frustrated with his own pace on events, but the former circuit-racer come Rally star has been one of the most remarkable quick learners all year with each and every performance showing really strong progression. For Travers, the standout performance must surely have been the season ending Laois Sprint, with victory being all the sweeter as it added a pair of vital points needed to leapfrog Brady and claim 2nd in the MIJRS J1000 standings.

While Rhys McElhinney will always remember his victory on round six, the Carrick-on-Suir sprint in his first year in the sport, there may be no more remarkable story in Irish Rallying than that of Oisin McShane securing the MIJRS J1000 title on his debut season, and in truly dominant fashion.

While things may not have gone to plan in Killarney, and close look at the times would have seen the Donegal youngster topping the stage results over and over again. A first victory would come on Round 2, the Carrick-on-Suir Forest Rally, and it would be the first of four maximum point hauls across the season that would see him romp home nine points ahead of the opposition.