NOVEMBER 21, 2001

Irish racing drivers - or the lack of them

A few years ago there seemed to be a never-ending supply of Irish racing drivers but in recent years most of the youngsters have come from Northern Ireland.

A few years ago there seemed to be a never-ending supply of Irish racing drivers but in recent years most of the youngsters have come from Northern Ireland. This has been a bit of a mystery but the reason for it may have been revealed by the Irish Department of Health which has just announced that alcohol consumption is up a startling 41% in the course of the last 10 years - at a time when most European countries registered drops in drinking.

The Irish Health Minister Ann Hope said that the sale of spirits has increased sharply in the last five years and said that this was partly due to rise of designer cocktails and the habit that the young Irish have of mixing vodka with the energy drink Red Bull.

So one could argue that while Red Bull is keen to promote racing in the United States it is not doing a very good job in Ireland!