{"id":381915,"date":"2026-04-04T16:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/381915\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:49:08","slug":"dramatic-circuit-of-ireland-rally-win-for-donegal-town-driver-david-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/381915\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramatic Circuit of Ireland Rally win for Donegal Town driver David Kelly\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Kelly secured a brilliant Circuit of Ireland Rally win on Sunday, marking the Donegal Town native&#8217;s first success in the Irish Tarmac Championship.<\/p>\n<p>With Kerry\u2019s Shane Buckley alongside him in their Skoda Fabia Rally2, Kelly emerged on top after an exceptionally tight contest, finishing just half a second clear of Josh Moffett and Andy Hayes following a tense finale around Dungannon.<\/p>\n<p>Heading into the closing stage with a cushion of nearly five seconds, Kelly managed the gap carefully to hold on and seal the win.<\/p>\n<p>The pairing of Eddie Doherty and Tom Murphy finished third, ending the rally almost a minute adrift of the leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Former winners Callum Devine and Noel O\u2019Sullivan had set the early pace and led overnight, but their challenge unravelled on Stage 9 when they slid off the road, eventually dropping to eighth place.<\/p>\n<p>It continues a strong early-season run for Kelly, who recently celebrated his first national rally win at the Mayo Stages Rally, underlining his growing momentum this year.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Kelly secured a brilliant Circuit of Ireland Rally win on Sunday, marking the Donegal Town native&#8217;s first&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[170398,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-381915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-donegal-international-rally","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}