RALLY NEWS NO.13                Galway Eyre Square Finish/Sunday  6pm

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 17 - FINAL STAGE
1st (13) Tapio Laukkanen/Harri Kaapro (Impreza WRC) 1.46.06.1
2nd (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.46.06.8
3rd (1) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.47.00.1
4th (3) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.57.56.7
5th (4) Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 1.47.59.8
6th (9) Tim McNulty/Julian Nangle (Impreza WRC) 1.48.42.2
7th (23) James Foley/Lisa Roe (Lancer N) 1.51.37.6
8th (16) Aaron MacHale/Ger McMonagle (Lancer N) 1.52.50.4
9th (25) Dessie Keenan/Laura Keenan (Lancer N) 1.53.00.9
10th (12) Denis Cronin/Helen O'Sullivan (Celica) 1.53.02.8

Today's First Choice Flooring Galway International Rally provided one of the closest finishes ever seen with Tapio Laukkanen taking victory by just 0.7 of a second. It certainly provided a fantastic start to the Pirelli Tarmac Championship.  However, one can't help but feel a little sorry for Eugene Donnelly.  Stages 15 and 17 were "cleaned" by all the top drivers and it looked fairly possible that Eugene would have been able to do enough to get ahead of Tapio.  It does however give a great boost to irish rallying that a Finnish driver can come here for the first time and win.  As Tapio climbed out of his Pirelli backed Phil Morgan run Subaru here at the Eyre Square finish ramp he commented. "A great weekend for us, Ok we made a few mistakes on the first day, and today we had some gearbox problems, but not too much. I am delighted with the win".

Eugene Donnelly commented. "Mixed emotions, the fact that we drove hard yesterday and tried not to make any mistakes. We had a few problems this morning with the anti lag, but we went faster and faster and made a big effort, then to come that close is frustrating. However, before the rally if anyone had told us we would get this sort of result, I wouldn't really have believed them. We're still learning a bit about the Corolla, but the car is fantastic, we lowered it, played about with the suspension today, the gear change is tremendous, there's a bit to come".   Eugene's co driver Paul Kiely wasn't anywhere near as buoyant as Eugene.  At the ramp his head was nearly in his hands, and he said "I'm gutted". It is some measure of the effort that went into this drive.

Third placed Austin MacHale had a frustrating enough rally. 6 times a Galway International winner Austin led initially, but a bit of a stall on a start line then some brake troubles, clutch slip this morning, engine head gasket leaking this afternoon, all combined to hold Austin back. And as he said himself "As the day wore on the problems removed any intention to mix it with the boys in front". 

Tarmac Champion Derek McGarrity finished 4th and he said. "At least its points on the board, the frustrating thing was that I never put a wheel wrong and still lost over a minute with than puncture, when the rock was right on my line. Then my heart just wasn't in it".   James Foley took a gallant Group N win with Aaron MacHale 2nd in the category and Dessie Keenan 3rd.  Denis Cronin did well to keep his rather elderly Celica to 10th place overall.  This was Denis' first run in a 4 wheel drive car. George Cullen was best placed Galway driver in the ex Bertie Fisher Impreza, 11th overall.  Colm Murphy in 12th put in some stunning gpN times but gearbox troubles robbed him of a better finishing position.  Unofficially we have Jack Sleator in 13th, Glen Wilson 14th and winning the F2 category from Guy Woodcock, but this is still unofficial. Finally for now, many thanks and well done to John O'Connell, Eleanor, Sheila and all the organising team. Also many thanks to all those who helped and supported the RallyNews service. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON      www.rallynews.net