The Irish have a momentum behind them in rallying. On the same day Keith Cronin from the far south west of the island won the British Rally Championship and Kris Meeke from the far north won the IRC. It is hard to put a finger on the reason, but Meeke’s success came as no surprise to Glenn Patterson, one of Kris’ original codrivers. He had masterminded Kris’ passage through two years of Junior World Championship rallying and could read the signs. "A lot of people have never really understood just how committed Kris has been to his rallying. The effort he takes in preparing for every forthcoming event is phenomenal. He would be staying up late watching every DVD he could find, to discover anything he could about the place and the event. And he is 100% committed to physical preparation as well".

The person who did a lot to set Kris on the right road behind the scenes was the late Colin McRae. Glenn remembers how well they worked together. "Kris would never be in the place he is now but for the help that Colin gave him earlier. It was not just material help, it was his advice about every aspect of the life of rally driving. They trained together up to the point they understood each other completely". That relationship was not open-ended, all good things come to an end and Kris was on his own. And it wasn’t easy. Opportunities did not come in abundance, but every time he had the chance he shone in what he did.

The biggest step forward was when Kris had the chance to drive the Peugeot UK team’s Super 2000 in the IRC, a dream opening in a championship which still not many people knew anything about. Together with the arrival of the Skoda team, the IRC had two major upward steps in the quality of their teams. Marc Van Dalen, chief of the Peugeot Kronos team who run the Peugeot UK team car for Meeke alongside their regular entries for the Belux team drivers Vouilloz and Loix and the various BF Goodrich Celebrity drivers, was under no illusion. At the start of the season he said "Kris is in a class well above the other drivers in the team. I think he stands a good chance of winning every rally he enters!" He has now won four...

Co-driver Paul Nagle from the south side of the Irish border has been a major part of the winning equation. He has been enthralled by everything in the IRC series and especially how they fitted in. "It all started so badly. We had been leading Monte Carlo and then we crashed. We left with zero points. But it got better from then onwards. Like everyone we missed the rally in Kenya, but we won the next three events. But looking back on everything the two things I will always remember was Kris beating all the Belgians in Ypres and then beating all the Italians at San Remo".

Kris Meeke has earned his place among the immortal Irish rally drivers, people like the FIA’s World PCWRC champion Niall MacShea, the British champion Billy Coleman, the Monte Carlo winners Paddy Hopkirk and Ronnie Adams - and of course, not to forget, the new British champion Keith Cronin.

3mmm