Teenager McShea clinches J1000 Challenge title

BY JACK KENNEDY

Last Saturday was a significant one for young James McShea as he clinched the J1000 Challenge title after the Donegal Forestry Rally.

After a fine season, 16-year-old McShea knew he would land the crown if he produced a good performance.

It went his way and the triumph sees him confirmed as one of the recipients of the 2026 Craig Breen Foundation Prize Fund.

Son of Niall McShea and Noreen McDaid, both sides of his family are hugely passionate about rallying. Niall won the Production World Rally Championship in 2004, and held the role of ‘The Stig’ in Top Gear.

His mother Noreen was a rally competitor as was his uncles and his grandfather, the late James McDaid.

James McShea was always likely to share the interest for motorsport and things are going well in the early stages of his career.

“I was competing in the Junior 1000 Challenge, competing all throughout Ireland,” said McShea on Tuesday in between fifth year classes at St Eunan’s College.

“Any 14-18 years is the age range. It’s forestry events mixed with a few tarmac events.

“Now it is the Craig Breen foundation since he passed away, it’s been set up and there’s loads of great experiences you can get from competing in the Juniors now.”

McShea got a taste for action in 2024 and came back strongly this year and struck up a good partnership with his co-driver.

“I competed once in the last round, last year in Clare. That was my first event, in my Micra and now this is my first full year doing the Juniors.

“All this year Grace O’Brien has sat in with me from the start. Grace is from Cork.

“Since we don’t have our licences, the navigator who has to be over 25 drives on the road, and whenever we get to the stages we switch over.

“From the start we knew Grace had a lot of experience, her dad, James O’Brien was a great navigator as well. He navigated for Andrew Nesbitt. She was the perfect navigator all year.

“Grace can really tell when stuff is getting out of hand and can help you calm it down. Grace is really good, she can change the tone of her voice, if I say we need it louder or anything. She’s very good.

“We weren’t able to recce the rallies. We know Cillian Duffy on the pacenote does a recce and he makes the notes and he also has a DVD. He has the Go-Pro and we watch it so that is basically our recce.”

After getting a taste of success, McShea is keen to push on again next year.

“There is a class 2A now that you can enter when you’re 16 that is R2 cars, this is my first year in the J1000 so we’ll have to see, we don’t know yet. We could do it another year or we could do a few more events next year and see about moving up.

“With the Craig Breen Foundation I can go to Norway to drive for two days on John Haugland school and I go to Portugal for a test in an i20 Hyundai.

“It’s a frozen lake in Norway, and we’re driving on snow. It will be a great experience.

“It’s great winning it. I really didn’t expect to win it at the start of the year after Carlow but we were able to get to a few events and I’m very happy to get it.

“It was very, very tight. There was one point in it at the end. It was a very tight race. It went down to the very last stage to decide second place, for me to be able to get the championship. It was a great race.

He added: “My family and all my sponsors that helped me, I really wanted to prove to them that helping me made a really huge difference, and it really did.”

James was welcomed back to St Eunan’s College by Vice-Principal Pauric O’Donnell and he’s been a high all week.

He admits isn’t always easy to concentrate on the books in the lead-up to a big rally.

He knows the risks involved and the importance of safety.

“I’m always thinking about the rally.

“Ireland’s saying is ‘keep the race in its place’ and it’s great to get the speed out on the stages and when you get the licence when your older you won’t feel the need to do anything and you’ll just want to go to the rally and thinking about the next rally and going as hard as you can there and that’s where you leave it.

“I’m looking forward to any bit of rallying I can do. I really appreciate it all.”