Meet John Coyne, the man helping to develop Ireland’s next generation of rally stars

Dubliner started Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy to help drivers advance in the industry

What do Moira’s William Creighton, Kesh’s Jon Armstrong and Kilrea’s Josh McErlean – along with many other rising Irish rally drivers, male and female – have in common? The answer is simple: John Coyne.

By Jason Craig  |  The Irish News  |  Sport / Motorsport  |  18 March 2026

A decorated and title-winning competitor, the Dublin-born former CEO of Western Digital is now a philanthropist, giving those who have the talent but not necessarily all the means, a foot up to realise their dreams.

His love of all things four wheels, and dedication to nurturing young talent, led him to launch the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy back in 2019.

A high-performance development programme, it provides coaching, training, mentoring, and financial support to competitors as they rise through the ranks, from grassroots level to international competitions.

In recent seasons, when time allows, Coyne occasionally competes – his last start came on Rally Finland last year. Aged 73, he became one of the oldest people to start a top-flight rally.

However, with starts now fewer and far between, he is equally as happy watching and supporting Academy members from the comfort of the service park.

Last week, he was in Naivasha for Safari Rally Kenya, round three of the FIA World Rally Championship. Before he jetted off on the 9,000-mile trip, he managed to find some time in his busy schedule to speak to Irish News Sport and reflect on his past successes, recent achievements, and hopes for the future.

You grew up in Dublin and built a successful business career in the United States before returning to rallying later in life. What first sparked your passion for motorsport, and how did those early experiences shape the path you eventually took?

JC: From my earliest memories of childhood, my father had an interest in all forms of motorsport. As a young boy we would attend everything from motorcycle trials in the Wicklow mountains to the Skerries road races and four-wheel sport ranged from mud-plugs to test trials to the Circuit of Ireland Rally.

Naturally, I gravitated to the sport and progressed from spectator to participant. I began competing in motorcycle trials at 16 and subsequently moved into cars from the age of 17.

I worked weekend and summer jobs from the age of thirteen to save up enough to fund what was rapidly becoming my passion. Starting in the family VW1200, I competed most weekends in test trials, autocross, production car trials, quarry-cross, navigation rallies or stage rallies through my college years while studying for a Mechanical Engineering degree at UCD.

I paid for all my own running costs, primarily from a part-time job behind the bar in an uncle’s pub, and there was a rule that the car had to be available for family use by 8am Monday morning – there were some late Sunday nights worked through to meet that requirement.

One set of Pirelli Cinturatos for the whole season, pump fuel and self-preparation with support from a group of college friends kept costs in check and attainable.

Winning the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship in 1982 was a major milestone. When you look back at that period now, what memories stand out most and how important was that title in defining your rally career?

JC: Over the next ten years I had a busy and successful time rallying, mainly in Ireland, though I did one round of the US championship in Pennsylvania in 1977.

I won the Irish National Rally Championship, with Christy Farrell, in 1977 in a Group One, 2.0-litre Chrysler Avenger. That year I also became the first driver to win an Irish national event outright in a Group One car.

As a result, we secured works support as part of Team Chrysler Ireland from 1978 to 1982, which greatly helped the economics of my rallying. This culminated in our Irish Tarmac Rally Championship win in 1982 in a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus.

The highlight of the 1982 season was coming fourth on the Circuit of Ireland Rally, behind Jimmy McRae, Russell Brookes and Henri Toivonen and ahead of Billy Coleman, Hannu Mikola and Ari Vatanen!

After retiring from business in 2013, many people might have slowed down – but you instead returned to international rallying. What motivated you to get back behind the wheel and pursue events at such a high level again?

JC: In parallel, in the day job, I worked my way up through a series of increasingly responsible positions from manufacturing engineer to general manager.

In 1983, I joined Western Digital Corp, an international provider of digital storage, and my primary focus shifted to my work career, with rallying becoming very much a hobby.

Having worked in Ireland, Asia and the US I retired in 2013, after a fulfilling and successful 30-year WD career, the final seven years as CEO. During my time in Asia, we competed in the Malaysian Rally Championship for several years, winning the Group N Championship with Robbie Philpott in a Group N Mitsubishi Evo 3.

However, from 2004 onwards, when I returned to the US as COO and subsequently CEO, I suspended my rallying to allow total focus on my leadership of the company.

My retirement left me in the fortunate financial position to indulge my passion for motorsport and rallying once again.

Competing in the World Rally Championship at the age of 73 in 2023 was an extraordinary achievement. What was it like lining up at rallies like Rally Finland and Rally Mexico, and what did those experiences mean to you personally?

JC: I returned to rallying in 2014, competing in the US where we secured multiple California Rally Series titles from 2015 to 2019 in a Subaru and then in the ARA National Championship where we won RC2 category in 2020 (Fiesta Rally2) and 2024 (Hyundai Rally2).

In Ireland, I found my original 1982 Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, restored it, and campaigned it in the Irish Tarmac historic class from 2015 to 2017.

Then we brought the crowd-pleasing Tuthill Porsche 997 RGT to the Irish stages from 2017 to 2019. In 2020 I took our U.S. Fiesta R5 to WRC Mexico, with Stephen Joyce, where we finished 15th overall. In 2023 I did both WRC Mexico and WRC Finland with Eoin Treacy, finishing both.

You founded the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy to support young Irish drivers and co-drivers aiming for the WRC. What was the moment or realisation that convinced you the Academy needed to exist?

JC: For years I had been studying how other countries identified and supported young talent. While our annual Motorsport Ireland Young Rally Driver of the Year (Billy Coleman Award) had a very good track record of talent identification, it was a modest, one-time, financial award with little post-award follow-on support. Looking at other countries’ processes, there was more structure and multi-year support.

A dinner in Killarney to celebrate 40 years of the Irish Tarmac Championship was the catalyst that brought myself and Sean McHugh, coordinator of the Billy Coleman Award, together. We found that our ideas on how to improve and enhance the award, to better position our athletes to thrive, were very much aligned.

In early 2019 we worked together to flesh out a concept I had been thinking about for some time, as a way of putting something back into a sport about which I am passionate and from which I have derived such fun over many years. The Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy was born.

I believed that with a structured support program we could identify, develop, and promote young Irish rally athletes to represent the country and compete effectively at the highest level of the sport.

Additionally, if successful, the program would encourage more youth participation at the grass roots once they could see a clear pathway to the top of the sport. This enlarged participant pool would then increase the likelihood of finding outstanding future talent.

Additionally, working with Motorsport Ireland and the Rallies’ Commission, we were instrumental in creating the MIJRS dual surface championship, popularising the entry level J1000 class, introducing the new Junior Rally A license for drivers 16 years of age and popularising the FIA pyramid of homologated cars.

All these steps are designed to pave a pathway to the World championship for exceptional Irish talent.

Some people might wonder whether supporting young drivers allows you to experience rallying from another perspective. Do you ever feel you’re living a little of your own racing dreams through their progress?

JC: We have already made substantial progress in just six years with three co-driver and one drivers’ Junior World title achieved, a BRC title, numerous JBRC titles and ERC and JERC podiums. We now have two crews competing in Rally1 – the highest level of the sport.

With some twenty drivers and co-drivers enrolled in the 2026 Academy class, some just starting their international careers and some at the highest world level, we can be very positive about the impact and progress of the Academy to date.

We have significantly increased the visibility of the sport of rallying at home and abroad and are well on the way towards the objective we set of putting an Irish crew on the top step of the world championship by 2030.

How hands-on are you with the Academy’s drivers and co-drivers? Are you involved in mentoring them directly, helping with strategy and career decisions, or do you prefer to support them more from behind the scenes?

JC: While Sean McHugh concentrates on identifying and supporting young talent in Irish, British and European Championship events, I focus on World Rally Championship events to directly mentor, support and encourage our competitors at that level.

Additionally we have a committed and talented team of experts working to guide and support our Academy members in the general athletic development needs of nutrition, fitness both physical and mental, media management, sponsorship seeking, and the rally-specific skills of making pace notes, driving, mechanical competence, event organisation and management and logistics planning.

Drivers like Jon Armstrong, Josh McErlean and William Creighton are now making their way through the international ranks. What qualities do you see in them that make you believe they can succeed on the world stage?

JC: The Academy project has delivered immense personal satisfaction as I have watched our supported athletes rise to European and World competitive levels, as I live vicariously through their success. I have also had the privilege of participating in their personal development from teenagers to accomplished young adults.

This is perhaps the most satisfying of all the elements of the project.

While the structure and content of our development programme is important to athlete development, the critical requirements for the success we have seen to date of our senior athletes, William Creighton, Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean is their single-minded focus on their sport, the immense work ethic and most important of all the hunger and will to win.

Establishing and sustaining a programme like that requires significant backing. Roughly how much have you personally invested so far, and how much further are you prepared to go to help Irish talent reach the top level?

JC: I decided to make an initial ten-year commitment to the Academy project, both financially and with my personal leadership involvement. Based on progress to date and the lessons we have learned of what works and what doesn’t, we are now working to obtain additional commercial support to complement my own multi-million Euro financial backing to extend the Academy indefinitely.

You continue to compete in international events, including the ARA National Championship in the United States. What keeps the competitive fire burning – and how long do you see yourself continuing to rally?

JC: In order to keep myself grounded in the realities of competition, I still try to compete at a few events each year. While I’m no longer as sharp as I once was, I still greatly enjoy the sensation of driving against the clock in all conditions and terrain. I hope to keep doing that as long as I can pass my annual medical certifications.

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