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As
published in Ulster Rally Programme (September 2002)
The brainchild
of rally fanatic, Jonathan MacDonald, the Rally Information
Service (www.ral.ly) website was first published on the Internet
highway during February 1998.
Initially
covering both the World and Irish Tarmac championships, the
site quickly grew to encompass the British, ANCRO and Northern
Ireland championships as well as various single venue events
such as the Lurgan Park Rally and the Punchestown Rally Experience.
Since
its inception, www.ral.ly has grown from strength to strength.
Complete with a full set of World Rally Championship results
dating back to 1973 plus all the latest information from rallying
around the world, not to mention an ever growing collection
of photographs and video clips, the site is considered to
be one of the best in the UK and Ireland.
Indeed,
www.ral.ly boasts in having the largest rally video clip collection
on the Internet. Most of these clips have been recorded on
the Irish and British rally scene while recent additions to
the collection include clips from the Jim Clark Memorial Rally,
Punchestown Rally Experience and Dogleap Stages Rally.
Jonathan
MacDonald, now a University student in Birmingham studying
Multimedia, assures that more is planned for the future of
www.ral.ly. Driver profiles, car specifications and the completion
of the British and Irish rally results sections are just some
of the plans that he has for his website.
"With
the help of other rally fans I hope to be able to complete
the results archives. I've already received a lot of help
from Kevin O'Driscoll
who has supplied Irish Tarmac Championship results, and Mark
Nurse who has supplied British Rally Championship results,
but there are still a few gaps which need to be filled in
- particularly with the Northern Ireland Championship results
section."
At just
twenty years of age, Jonathan has worked for a newspaper as
Motorsport Correspondent for one year. He also takes photographs
at events along with his father, John MacDonald, and won the
runner-up prize in the 2001 under-21 section of Irish Motorsport
Photographer of the Year.
When asked
what he would like to do after University he replied: "I'm
not sure at all. I really enjoyed my time with the newspaper
and given the opportunity I'd love to write about Motorsport
and take photographs. Then there's the website design side
to things or the video camera work and editing. I think I'll
have to leave my decision for the time being!"
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