{"id":9183,"date":"2023-04-13T15:33:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/rallying-irish-driver-craig-breen\/"},"modified":"2023-04-13T15:33:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:33:54","slug":"rallying-irish-driver-breen-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/rallying-irish-driver-breen-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Rallying-Irish driver Breen dies after testing crash in Croatia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) -Ireland&#8217;s top rally driver Craig Breen has died after an accident in a pre-event test for the Croatian round of the world championship, his Hyundai team said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The team gave no details of the accident just after midday local time but said co-driver James Fulton was unharmed.<\/p>\n<p>Media reported that Breen&#8217;s car went off the road and collided with a pole while the 33-year-old was preparing for next week&#8217;s rally, his second of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Breen, who started out as a co-driver before switching to driving in 2008, finished second in Rally Sweden in February when he made his return to the team on a part-time basis after a year with M-Sport Ford.<\/p>\n<p>He was a world championship regular over the years, although rarely for a full season, and while not a winner he finished second in six rallies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Irish motorsport community is numbed by this tragic news. Craig was a world class driver and a world class person,&#8221; said Motorsport Ireland president Aiden Harper in a statement of condolences.<\/p>\n<p>Breen is the first fatality in the world championship since German junior co-driver Joerg Bastuck in the 2006 Rally of Catalunya.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/rallying-irish-driver-breen-dies\/file-photo-fia-world-rally-championship-rally-sweden\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0J2-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0J2-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/rallying-irish-driver-breen-dies\/employees-from-hyundai-motorsport-inspect-the-car-in-which-irelands\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0NU-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0NU-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/rallying-irish-driver-breen-dies\/a-man-closes-off-the-road-leading-to-the-site\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0NY-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0NY-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) -Ireland&#8217;s top rally driver Craig Breen has died after an accident in a pre-event test for the Croatian round of the world championship, his Hyundai team said in a statement on Thursday. The team gave no details of the accident just after midday local time but said co-driver James Fulton was unharmed. Media reported [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-9183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0J2-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9414,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9183\/revisions\/9414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}