RALLY NEWS NO.6             Glenamaddy-Service-Sat.2.30
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UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 6 Colemanstown
1st (5) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 39.10
2nd (1) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Corolla WRC) 39.38
3rd (3) Peadar Hurson/Ian Porter (Celica) 39.57
4th (6) Maurice Gass/Geoffrey Orr (Impreza WRC) 40.24
5th (9) Roy White/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 40.26
6th (8) Trevor Cathers/Dessie Wilson (Lancer N) 40.30
7th (10) Seamus Leonard/Kevin O'Brien (Subaru N) 40.37
8th (18) Dominic Loughran/Lisa Roe (Lancer N) 42.09
9th (31) Gerry McVeigh/Padraig Dineen (Lancer N) 42.19
10th (20) Tom Holton/Andrew Cullen (Celica) 42.29

There were dramas in stage 6 when the lead of this West 2002 International Rally changed.  Peadar Hurson had led for the first 5 tests but his D&S Roe backed Celica slithered into the scenery on that Colemanstown test to allow Eugene Donnelly into the lead.  Donnelly had been piling the pressure on ever since the first stage, when his Subaru incurred a puncture. Hurson had also admitted that his Celica is a real handful on these wet slippy roads today.  Donnelly did report having jarred his back on a stage 6 jump, again evidence of how hard the Maghera man is trying. He says however he is taking no risks, driving within himself. One thing which is possibly helping Eugene today is having done so many forestry rallies recently and of course winning the KBB Doors Forestry championship title on the fast Killarney stages would have done his confidence no harm at all.  Austin MacHale had a better time on that stage 6, just 5s down on Donnelly.  Maurice Gass' Impreza WRC suffered a small off road excursion in stage 6, but he still set a very good time, to jump from 7th to 4th, ahead of the gpn cars.

Trevor Cathers was fastest of the gpN cars throughs tage 6, 5s faster than Roy White, 15 ahead of Seamus Leonard, whom we presume must have had a problem.  Tom Holton's Celica emerged from stage 6 with a lot of frontal damage, but still with a reasonable time. 

Looking back slightly, we reported earlier that Dessie Keenan was leading his class, but he has crashed his Peugeot to allow Alan Ring, co driven by Brian Duggan, to lead the class from Glenn Wilson. Glenn admits to having driven like an old woman through 5 and letting Ring get ahead of him. Mike Bird/John Burke would have been expected to be right up there with the other Peugeots, but they were stuck in a stage 1 field for 5mins when the car would not engage gear coming into a tight corner. Paul Dempsey is getting on to his hired Subaru, and is now into the top 10, and 2nd Galway crew behind Tom Halliday. (Halliday is however in the National Rally). Eugene Meegan hit a stone wall in stage 4, his Peugeot rolled but landed back on its wheels, but was to go no further.
FURTHER DONNELLY NEWS…Eugene's jarred back is turning out to be more serious than at first thought - he is in a lot of pain and considering pulling out of the rally.  More later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON  (our thanks to Ian Beasant and Sir Adrian Dangerous).
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