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UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 5 - LAST STAGE

Updated 17.00 hrs to include shootout

1st (7) Richard Hogg/Mark Hanna (Escort Cos) 7.10.0

2nd (8) John McKeown/Paul Fergus (Sierra Cos) 7.12.0

3rd (10) Terence McLoughlin/S.McLoughliln (Esc.Cow) 7.19.0

4th (5) Denis Biggerstaff/Damien McCann (Metro 6R4) 7.22.0

5th (12) Sean Cassidy/Martina Doyle (Escort Cos) 7.23.0

6th (16) Seamus Heron/Gerry McVeigh (Lancer) 7.26.0

(17) Andrew Stewart/F. McShane (Impreza) 7.26.0

8th (2) Eugene Donnelly/Shane O'Neill (Escort G3) 7.27.0

(18) Dan McCartan/Michael McElwee (Lancer) 7.27.0

10th (23) Philip Shaw/Conor Murphy (Escort) 7.30.0

11th (11) Jim Crozier/Paul Callan (Proton) 7.31.0

"We were really floating" laughed Richard Hogg as he came in from the last stage of this Lark in the Park. It was a real cliff hanger, with the Limavady man starting the last stage equal on time with John McKeown. Richard was 2s faster which gives him the overall win. He continued "I don't know if there was anything left in the car, but there was certainly nothing left in me, I gave it everything. It was quite a run". As for McKeown, he was a bit down in the dumps when he came in from the stage, the former NI Champion saying "The crashed Subaru put me off. It was a real fast place, if I had hit it, it would have finished both cars". John was referring to Ivan Orr's accident - he put the Maurice Gass Impreza off the road and the car finished very close to the track. Terence McLoughlin had a good run to hold on to 3rd place. Denis Biggerstaff put in an absolute stormer of a time - 1s quicker even than Hogg - to bring himself from equal 8th to 4th place in one fell swoop. Denis lost time earlier in the day when his Metro 6R4 suffered a damaged rear differential. The Dromara man has certainly made up for lost time, and going into the "shoot out", must be favourite. Sean Cassidy makes up the top 5 to qualify to the œ1000 shoot out. Then are 2 wild cards to be selected. One of those will probably be Eugene Donnelly and we await the decision from the Event Director Declan McCay as to who will be the final wild card in the shoot out.

Looking back one stage - Norman Kerr was leading the Historics by 3s from John Keatley with Mervyn Johnston 3rd and Michael Carlin 4th.

LATE NEWS.....Denis Biggerstaff has won the "shoot out" with a stunning time of 1.36s, closest to him was John McKeown, but several seconds back..BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON

(our thanks to all at Maiden City MC for a great day's rallying and a very good family day out also...)