1^st (13) Tapio Laukkanen/Harri Kaapro (Impreza WRC) 1.16.50.5

2^nd (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.16.59.0

3^rd (1) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.17.27.7

4^th (3) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.18.16.5

5^th (4) Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 1.18.23.8

6^th (9) Tim McNulty/Julian Nangle (Impreza WRC) 1.18.58.4

7^th (23) James Foley/Lisa Roe (Lancer N) 1.21.07.9

8^th (16) Aaron MacHale/Ger McMonagle (Lancer N) 1.22.06.7

9^th (25) Dessie Keenan/Laura Keenan (Lancer N) 1.22.25.2

10^th (12) Denis Cronin/Helen O'Sullivan (Celica) 1.22.36.7

11^th (38) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 1.22.42.7

12^th (17) George Cullen/Jakes Kelly (Impreza WRC) 1.23.36.9

Despite having no water injection on his Corolla WRC Eugene Donnelly was fastest through stage 11, although by just 0.8 of a second of Laukkanen. Eamonn Boland was 3^rd fastest, 2s behind the Finnish driver, and then it was Austin MacHale a further 5s back, the Sanyo Air Conditioning/Tom Hogan Motors Focus suffering a slipping clutch.

Rally leader Tapio commented here at service "I found the stage quite slippy, perhaps I was too careful, there is no point in doing anything stupid, everything is looking good". Eugene Donnelly explained that the Kevlar water tank inside the car had a hole where a pipe was attached, and pumped water all over the inside of the Toyota. Eugene did a temporary repair between stages 10 and 11, but it didn’t last. The Maghera man saying "The boys should be fit to fix it now, you do notice an awful difference in the car without the water injection, But overall I’m happy to be in there, ahead of MacHale, McGarrity and so on. But I still find it difficult in the left hand drive on the really quick stuff".

Austin MacHale hopes to get his Focus clutch changed here at service. Derek McGarrity told us that he’s running the car too soft in the suspension, and also had too soft a compound for today’s fine conditions, while overall the Glengormley man observed. "The fire has sort of half gone out of me since the puncture yesterday". Eamonn Boland and Tim McNulty in 5^th and 6^th report no problems. Donie O’Sullivan was 7^th, but his Bio Clear Focus has dropped right to the back of the field with a stage 11 electrical problem. This leaves James Foley in 7^th and leading gpN.

Further stories include – Denis Cronin’s Celica being down on power with an anti lag problem. Jack Sleator is now into 13^th despite finding no grip out of his tyres on the last 2 stages. Glenn Wilson is 14^th and Guy Woodcock 15^th, just 5s between them in their fight for class lead. Tony Davies is just outside the top 15, he is finding his Metro 6R4 a bit of a handful on the fast stuff, but it is his first outing in the car and he reckons it will take a rally or two to sort the suspension.

Looking back to stage 10 there were lots of drams on one particular corner when Noel Redmond put his Hyundai up a bank, got away with it, but pulled lots of mud on to the road. A stack of drivers arrived into the corner too hard, got caught out in the mud and had huge moments. Pat Kearney’s class leading Peugeot got stuck in a ditch and couldn’t get going again, out of rally. Andrew Hegarty went into a field and pulled a drive shaft out of his Puma. We mentioned earlier that John Spain had a mechanical problem at the service before stage 10, news is that he did not get going. Unconfirmed reports that Dominic Naughton’s Saxo has stopped with a mechanical problem, as has Keith McFadden’s Nova.

Stage 12 had to be cancelled before the cars arrived – too many spectators at the big hump backed railway bridge. They would not co-operate with the officials of the rally so there was no alternative but to cancel the stage on safety grounds. More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net