2023 ANICC Recognition for Paul Phelan

At the Coleraine round of the 2023 Northern Ireland Autotest Championship, the Chairman of the ANICC Specialist Committee for Autotests, Gordon Buckley, presented Paul Phelan with a special award to mark his contribution to motorsport in general, and Autotest in particular.  The engraved inscription on the glass bowl read “Presented to Paul Phelan in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Motorsport, from the ANICC Autotest Specialist Committee 2023.”  A fitting tribute indeed. 

Paul’s involvement in motorsport extends back into the 1960s. One of his first events was a 1965 novice navigation rally in South County Dublin with his Father. Then aged just 16 (wasn’t 17 until 19th November), it was in a split-screen Morris Minor, and in a sign of things to come, ran out winners.

In the following years, If a motorsport event was under way, he’d be there as a competitor, timekeeper, or reporter collecting info for the papers.  He became famous for having a list of competitor times on the back of an old rally bulletin, or an entry list, and in a unique writing style that only he could decipher to identify who was winning.  He was a prolific writer for Motoring News, nowadays branded as Motorsport News, The Irish Times, and many other motoring publications.

Ever since those mid 1960s he became the man to beat “on the maps”.  Having grown up on the ½ inch to the mile versions in the South, the 1 inch to the mile maps in the North were like having an extra magnifier and he won the 1971 and 1975 Northern Ireland Navigator Championships.

His navigation skills were always in high demand and he was Circuit of Ireland Retrospective Rally winner 9 times, all of them with Eamonn Byrne doing the driving in a Cooper S.  He was 19 times the top Irish Championship Navigator, including 7 years in a row with David Yeates from 1981 to 1987.

He has competed on 10 Circuits of Ireland, starting in 1967 with Demi Fitzgerald in a Cooper S, and through the years partnered other top local drivers like Mervyn Johnston, Gerry Forde, Eamonn Cotter, Cecil Vard, and Ernest Kidney. He was co-driver for a couple of overseas drivers was well, none other than Ove Andersson and Timo Salonen. His Circuit of Ireland career was crowned in 1975 by winning with Billy Coleman.

His passion for motorsport was nowhere more evident than when he was observing or competing at driving tests and trials, and later at the re-branded sport of Autotest.  Starting with his road going Mini in 1974, he has been competing religiously right up to the present day, these days running a Mini Special on events North and South.  He has been the long-term Secretary of the Trials Drivers Club and seems to have been Ken Wharton Team Manager for the Republic of Ireland Team for ever.

The award by the ANICC Autotest Specialist Committee is a fitting tribute to a man who has been a key part of Irish motorsport for the best part of six decades.