Park Systems Rally Team AKA Kelly’s Heroes are back for more in the 2006 County Saab Scottish Rally Championship. The big news is that the team have a new car for the new season. The new arrival is the Group N Mitsubishi Evo 8 that works driver Rory Galligan used to win the 2004 Evo Challenge.

The new Evo replaces “Doris” the old Evo 4 Greenock driver Andy Kelly has used to great effect for the past 7 years with numerous class wins and top ten overall results. Andy said “We had been looking for a new car since summer of last year and had almost given up. In fact Doris had been prepared to start the new season. Then the week before Christmas we got the opportunity for the new car which we picked up the second week in January and Dom Buckley Motorsport have been working their magic on her since then. The rebuilt engine will be back in the car this week ready for the Arnold Clark Thistle Snowman on the 18th of this month”.

The Older Evo 4 is still a fantastic wee car and I’m sorry to see her go but I cant afford two rally cars. Linda Allan from Oban has bought the car and she is intending doing the championship with it, just hope she doesn’t beat us!!!

This year’s 8 round County Saab Scottish Rally Championship kicks off in Inverness town centre on Saturday the 18th at 9:00 AM. The event has attracted 80 crews that will tackle the demanding ultra fast forest stages North of the highland capital. Andy said “We are really looking forward to getting back to the sport – a wee health problem stopped us from contesting the last round of the 2005 championship but that’s all fixed now. We all had such a good time last year and got on so well it didn’t take much to convince everyone to have another go this year. We are looking for wet and slippy conditions which will narrow the gap between the more powerful world rally and group A cars. We are seeded at 14 with 2 other Group N cars in front of us so that will be a good bench mark for us. We want to be able to firstly, get the new car going as quick as the old one and then look to improve our pace from last year. We reckon it will take a couple of events to get up to speed”.

Andy will for the second year be partnered by the very experienced Doug Redpath from Duns. Doug said “I’m really looking forward to the Snowman and the Championship this year and the fact that we have a new car is a bonus. The old one went pretty quickly but at times we certainly lost out to the newer technology. A wet Snowman Rally would be good. Sometimes it can be very icy on this event and that makes things a bit of a lottery. Most of the stages are very fast and we can expect speeds in excess of 120 MPH on the narrow gravel roads – good exciting stuff”.

The team are once again being supported by Glasgow based Park Systems Furniture, Interact Interiors, Genesis Window Blinds, kmgflorida.com and Five Mile Garage in Aberdeen. Dom Buckley Motorsport will again prepare the car and Andrew Wood Motorsport will provide the Dunlop tyre package and on event assistance.

The Team have adopted the charity Radio Lollipop. We are trying to raise awareness of the work done by the volunteers who provide entertainment and radio broadcasts to the children in Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital. Andy said “We supported Lollipop a few years ago and done a bit to raise awareness and a wee bit of cash. They have to find the volunteers to go out on the wards and entertain the children some of whom are in long term care, they also have to purchase their own equipment. I visited them last year and was again blown away by what they do with so little. We intend to use the car whenever we can and we will have the collecting tin at events!!!”.

For more information and to keep up with the team visit the web site at www.kellys-heros.co.uk why not come and visit the team service area at events.

Buena Vista games have provided 5 goodie bags to help promote the Disney movie “Chicken Little” and its associated Playstation 2 game.

Each goodie bag contains a mug, a watch, a poster, a yo-yo, a keyring, a copy of the Playstation 2 game and a cuddly Chicken Little toy.

The company donated goodie bags to other Radio Lollipop stations around the country and provided activity sheets to keep the kids busy on the wards.

We would like to thank Buena Vista Games and Bastion Marketing Company for their support for Radio Lollipop. The goodie bags will bring a lot of pleasure to the children at Newcastle RVI and at other Lollipop stations around the country.

Radio Lollipop Newcastle have stepped up their efforts to encourage awareness about the charity within the local area by producing a CD-ROM to give to families on the wards and potential donators to the charity.

The CD-ROM features four main sections:

OUR WORK IN NEWCASTLE
HOW YOU CAN HELP
BECOMING A VOLUNTEER
and
KIDS’ ACTIVITIES

Newcastle’s fundraiser, Emma Palmer said

“We thought that a CD-ROM would be a useful way of reaching out to those who come into contact with us on the wards. It gives them the option to help us if they can, without pushing the fundraising aspect in people’s faces whilst their child is sick. That’s the last thing they want to hear about and the last thing we want to talk about with them. We’re there to play with the kids, nothing more. Even so, to do that we have to raise the public profile of the charity and to do our bit to raise the funds needed to keep the charity going.

The CD-ROM was created entirely free of charge by one of Newcastle’s volunteers so it’s actually a fairly economical way to get the word out. It will also be distributed to local schools and businesses in order to encourage them to understand exactly what it is we do within the hospital.”

CD-ROM creator, Helen Hudspith, said “we also felt that it was important to offer something in return to the families. We have included some of Radio Lollipop’s play sheets on the CD for people to print out and use with their kids when they are in hospital. Hopefully we can leave the CD’s next to the computers in the wards and then, if for any reason we can’t stock the play sheets that week, the families will still have access to them on the computer. It’s also a great way to thank companies that go the extra mile for the kids, as we are lucky enough to be able to constantly update the CD-ROM ourselves”.