JAMES Cullen will surely feel nostalgic on Friday morning.
Cullen’s life has been rallying.
The Letterkenny man has been a driver, navigator, spectator and he even served as the Clerk of the Course for the Donegal Rallies of 1982 and ’83.
He started off as a navigator with Andy Hegarty in the late 1970s and he remembers running as a team with one Rory Kennedy in 1979, the pair finishing 14th in a Hillman Avenger.
Cullen’s memories of Donegal go further back.
He remembers cycling up to watch part of a stage at The Claremans.
With the Trentagh stage set to run again this Friday morning, as the first and fourth stages of the 2016 event, Cullen will retrace his old steps – back at the wheel again, 25 years on from the first of his two Donegal International wins as a driver.
“It’s been a part of my life since I went out to watch it out at The Claremans as a wee boy,” he says.
[adrotate group=”11″]“I was away up there on a bicycle to watch the rally, way before I had a car even.
“It’s the buzz of it, the spectacle of it, the noise and that whole thing.
“As a young boy, that’s what you love to see and something you want to get to be a part of. I was fortunate enough to find a way to be a part of it. I started off co-driving and I was lucky enough to drive in it after that.
“They’re running around that stage again this year.”
As a Letterkenny man whose life revolved around rallying, Cullen’s famous wins in 1991 and 1999 are among the most memorable in the history of the Donegal Rally.
Cullen cut a legendary figure during the days of his frenetic battles with the likes of Bertie Fisher – with whom Kennedy forged a lethal partnership – and Andrew Nesbitt.
Cullen triumphed in a famous pink Ford Sierra.
‘The Pink Panther’ was put together outside Tony Kelly’s old garage on the Oldtown Road.
[adrotate group=”74″]Cullen spraying the champagne from the bonnet of the Sierra, with the late, great Ellen Morgan alongside him, remains one of the Donegal Rally’s abiding images.
He says: “It’s a great feeling. It was something I spent a long time dreaming about.
“You start off and do all the wee class cars, then eventually get a chance to go into the big stuff. You find yourself competing with people who were your heroes and who you admired, looked up to. To win it in that environment was the icing on the cake.
[adrotate group=”67″]“We have some of the best rallying roads in the world here in Donegal.
“The challenge to drive these roads, there aren’t many roads in the world that can replicate that. We have something very special here. That’s why people want to come back to it.”
Cullen and Kennedy were neighbours in Glencar in the 70s and it was through Kennedy that Cullen was introduced to the thrills and spills of rallying.
He says: “It’s been part of the life ever since. I’ve worked in rallying, I’ve ran the rally and I’ve competed in the rally. It’s a huge occasion.
“If you are lucky enough to participate in your own sport at a decent level within your own county – it’s like playing for Donegal or for Finn Harps – then there’s no better feeling for a guy from Donegal.”
The 61-year-old Letterkenny man was persuaded to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his win in Donegal in 1991 by entering again.
A ‘Cullen4Donegal’ team, led by the likes of Stephen Sheridan, Aidan Caddye and Denis Orr, has been working hard behind the scenes lately.
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