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RALLY
NEWS NO.5
Westport/Service/Sunday 4.30
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 6 Partry Mountain
1st (2) Niall Maguire/Paul McLoughlin (Impreza WRC) 46.58
2nd (5) Kevin Lynch/Francis Regan (Impreza WRC) 47.06
3rd (6) Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh (Impreza) 47.52
4th (10) Tommy Graham/Francis Kenny (Impreza WRC) 48.47
5th (32) Dominic McLoughlin/Cyril Donellan (Peugeot rwd) 49.32
6th (15) Kieran Shaw/Crawford Henderson (Impreza WRC) 49.37
7th (22) John Cairns/James Cairns 9Impreza N) 49.43
8th (8) David Armstrong/Herbie Blackburn (Escort WRC) 50.06
9th (31) Trevor Lancashire/Noel Hall (Escort) 50.29
10th (41) Maurice Moffett/Jason McKenna (Starlet) 50.38
11th (153) Martin Doherty/Charlie Beattie (Lancer N) 50.39
12th (28) Adrian Quinn/Alan Moran (Lancer N) 50.54
Former National Champion Niall Maguire pulled out the stops on stages 5 and 6 to
turn a 3s deficit to an 8s advantage over Kevin Lynch, neither driver reporting
any problems. Over the Sheeffry stage, No.5 on today's menu, Maguire was 8s
faster than Lynch. On the long Partry test Monaghan man Maguire was 3s up.
With 2 stages to go and just 8s between the two anything could still happen.
Seamus Leonard is in a wee window of his own in 3rd place, although he lost time
in stage 6 when his Impreza tyres overheated and lost their edge. Tommy
Graham in 4th had a good clean run through stages 5 and 6 following his
overshoots in stage 4. Fifth placed Kieran Shaw wasn't even on the
leaderboard after the early stages, but as the day has progressed he has speeded
up, but said. "The new Subaru is a completely different animal from the
Escort WRC, but it is coming". David Armstrong, who is driving an
Escort WRC, the ex Melvyn Evans car, has been going a bit better over the last
few stages, and despite a slow puncture has come into the leaderboard. David
McNulty has dropped out of the top 10 when his Escort Cosworth suffered a
puncture on stage 5 and a driveshaft problem in stage 6. David's total now
51.11.
John Cairns continues to lead group N overall but has slipped from 5th to 6th
place overall, John reporting that his Subaru has broken an engine mounting, the
engine is resting on the sump guard and losing oil. His only answer has
been to ease back over the big jumps, which has obviously cost him some seconds.
Martin Doherty has come into 2nd group N, Adrian Quinn 3rd. We were wondering
earlier what had happened to Aaron MacHale. His Lancer broke a gearbox shaft in
stage 4 and a cousin towed him out of a back road. Eoin Doyle has started to
speed up in his gpN Subaru, that was following some adjustments by engineer Tom
Gahan, but in overall terms Eoin is still out of the picture on 51.29. Eoin is
under advice not to try any heroics today, but just to clock some stage miles in
preparation for the Circuit of Ireland. Gavin Harris is on 51.24. Danny
McBride 51.29 and still struggling with no 1st and 2nd gear, the Donegal man's
chances not helped either when the fire extinguisher went off in the middle of
stage 6, and nearly gassed him.
In the modified category Pat Donegan has dropped right out of the picture, his
Escort having been stuck in a bog at the first chicane in stage 5 for 7 minutes.
There were no spectators to help get the car back on the road. There was no real
damage to the Escort. Dominic McLoughlin is still flying, as is Maurice Moffett.
Trevor Lancashire is going really well. More news later. BRIAN & LIZ
PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
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