RALLY NEWS NO.6                Charterhall service - Saturday 10am

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 10 EDROM 2
1st (1) Andrew Nesbitt/James O'Brien (Impreza WRC) 1.05.01.9
2nd (4) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.05.05.4
3rd (6) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.06.26.2
4th (15) Dougi Hall/Steve Egglestone (Focus WRC) 1.07.07.2
5th (5) David Higgins/Daniel Barritt (Accent WRC) 1.07.19.6
6th (3) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.07.31.2
7th (2) Jonny Milner/Nicky Beech (Impreza WRC) 1.07.36.9
8th (9) Paul Bird/Andrew Bargery (Focus WRC) 1.08.36.8
9th (8) Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin (Focus WRC) 1.09.04.3
10th (12) Barry Johnson/Stewart Merry (Impreza WRC) 1.09.36.1

Through stage 10 Eugene Donnelly was fastest again, by just a couple of seconds from Andrew Nesbitt with Derek McGarrity on a good pace, but still another 5s back.  Nesbitt commented here at service. "Going well, but we were on slightly the wrong tyres, but there's life in the oul dog yet!"  Eugene Donnelly also commented about tyres, however in reality it would appear that where there is a loop of 3 stages there is no right tyre for all 3! Eugene also said "The chicanes are very tight, the sides of my car are wrecked. The big trouble with tyres now is that the first stage out of service starts right here, and then there is a massive road run to the next one, and the weather could do anything".  Derek McGarrity said. "Going OK, if anything I was conservative in my tyre choice. We're going to try to change the turbo now, I feel the car has lost just a little of its edge, and there's oil pouring out of the rear differential breather, there is little we can do about that. " As Derek spoke, co-driver Dermot O'Gorman was on the mobile phone back to Ireland arranging a couple of cranes and a cement mixer for a customer.  Derek laughed and said. "There's life outside rallying, I'm surprised sometimes he's not on the phone in the middle of stages!" 

Dougi Hall has moved up from an overnight 5th to 4th, although he was caught out slightly on a stage 10 square left, where he drifted into the hedge and caused a little damage to the Focus right hand side, lost little time. David Higgins is still struggling slightly to get on top of his Hyundai on these tarmac stages, David's cause not helped when he stalled the car on a tight hairpin right and lost perhaps 10s.   Austin MacHale has had a good run this morning to hold on to 6th place. Jonny Milner is just over 5s back in 7th, Jonny reporting. "Roads a bit greasy, we had a good run, but the exit of some corners is quite nasty".  Eamonn Boland dropped a mountain of time on stage 9, reportedly with a puncture, but there must have been more to it, because he dropped 10m in the stage, and over 2m road penalty afterwards, although his stage 10 times was quite respectable.

Matthew Wilson was blinded by the sun on that 10th stage and spun on a square left afterwards, caught out on mud.  Paul Bird is going well today although he said he has lost a bit of confidence over the jumps. Barry Johnson is slightly disappointed to be in 10th, Barry has plenty of experience of this rally. Guy Wilks is 11th now and still leads Super 1600. Steve Perez has come up to 12th, Steve confessing that he hasn't quite realised what his Vodka Kick Focus WRC will do on the tarmac, the last time he was here was in his Historic Porsche!

In Group N there has been a slight adjustment to Paul Wedgbury's stage 1 time which was found to be 20s to the good, when the audit was done overnight. Roy White has now got ahead of Paul, although Roy has a niggling engine problem, His mechanics have changed the coil packs and leads but still not right. Wedgbury reports no problems. 3rd GpN Seb Ling is now concentrating very much on Pirelli BRC points. Rory Galligan seems to be leading the Evo Challenge at the moment but was complaining of big oversteer problems through this morning's stages. Lorna Smith is going well in the 22 Motorsport car and was still ahead of Jennie-Lee Hermansson in the sister Impreza this morning. Dorian Rees had a puncture yesterday and is fighting hard to get back into the gpN picture and rescue some Prodrive Subaru Cup points. Finally, Niall McShea/Gordon Noble up to 3rd in Ypres Rally in the Crack backed Colsoul Lancer. More later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON   www.rallynews.net
For our new live SMS results service simply text RALLY NEWS to 60066. Messages charged at 25p. Only available to UK mobiles at the moment.