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!"