1974 Rally Champions

Paul and Sean – Champions at the double.

This report by Sammy Hamill appeared in the Belfast telegraph.

CONGRATULATIONS CHAMP…and it works both ways! Sean Campbell (left) and Paul Martin have a lot in common these days. At the weekend they became Ireland’s new rally champions.

Martin, in his self-prepared Ford Escort twin cam, snatched the Northern Ireland title from two-time champion David Agnew in the final round of the series on Friday night while Campbell, from Newry, clinched the Eire championship on Sunday Morning in his Lindsay Cars-HyMac Escort RS1600.

Martin began the last round, the Queen’s Winter Rally, in joint second place in the series, two points behind leader Agnew, and level with Dessie McCartney. But an outright win, after Agnew’s co-driver Robert Harkness became sick and dropped the champions down to eighth place, was all Paul needed to give him the title for the first time.

The other main challenger, Dessie McCartney, dropped out after his navigator Terry Harryman also became ill. However they had already lost a considerable amount of time when they ran out of petrol!

It was Martin’s second victory of the season — he also won the Omagh Motor Club Cam Rally — but it was his overall consistency which brought him the championship. There could not have been a more popular winner.

Sean Campbell, for so long rallying’s “Mr. Unlucky”, surmounted his series of misfortunes this season to dominate the Southern championship. Victory in the Galway International Hotel Rally gave him the incentive he needed, and in the final all-night round at the week-end he only needed a place in the first 15 to be certain of the title.

He made it with lots to spare, driving sensibly into second place behind Gerry Forde’s Porsche Carrera in the Aer Lingus Jumbo Rally. Just reward at last for one of the most talented drivers in the country.

By a strange coincidence, both champions shared the same navigator, Derek Smyth. Unfortunately Derek didn’t manage to win either championship for navigators. The Northern title went to Peter Scott and the Southern series to Paul Phelan, with Derek the runner up in both.

“Derek did so much to help Paul and myself to win our championships it’s unfortunate he didn’t get one for himself,” commented Sean. And Paul? “I could never have won without him. He deserves to be champion just as much as I do,” he said.

With Patsy McGarrity winning the Irish Formula Atlantic championship, John Lyons winning the British, RAC, Northern Ireland and Eire autotest championships, Cahal Curley winning the three
major international tarmac rallies (the Circuit of Ireland, Donegal and Manx rallies) plus John Watson’s breakthrough into Formula One racing, it has been a fabulous year for Northern Ireland motorsport.