Owen Murphy is a 19-year-old on a mission.
At last weekend's Carrick-on-Suir Forestry Rally, the Ballincollig teenager was second overall in his €15,000 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 5 Group N, beaten by the €200,000 Subaru Impreza WRC of Kenny McKinstry.
Owen started driving at eight years of age in karting and went on to win the Junior Karting Championship before entering grass racing and from there to Autocross, before honing his skills in the UK in the 2005 Peugeot 206 Cup where he came fourth overall in the series.
"The car we entered was worth about £15,000 and it was second to a car worth more than £200,000," says Gerry Murphy,
Owen's father, who manages his son's team said, "We bought our car in Northern Ireland and we do all the maintenance on the car ourselves.
"Owen is studying motor engineering and two of his friends are apprentice mechanics and they travel with us. Thankfully our car is not that complicated either."
The Murphys compete in about 10 events a year and Gerry reckons that this costs them about €1,000 per event.
Gerry says it is harder for teams like his and for driver's like his son Owen to get noticed in Ireland, when in many cases they are competing with older drivers in WRC-prepared cars, which on tarmac will devour all before them.
"In Norway or Sweden they have like a college of rallying. They have academies in these places and they help and pay for their more talented youngsters to go forward. There is nothing like that in Ireland apart from the Billy Coleman Award," he adds.
Next for Owen will be signing up for the Ford Fiesta ST championship but that will be dependant on them selling last year's Peugeot. "We have to try and sell last year's assets car to try and fund that."