Donie O'Sullivan kept the pressure on right to the end of this West Cork Rally, fastest on stages 15 and 16 to score a memorable win. Co-driven by Paul Nagle, Donie had his fair share of problems including a broken clutch and a puncture today, but still his speed and style were exemplary and the 2 drivers behind, Lima McCarthy and Melvyn Evans, just couldn't match his pace.      Donie commented when he came off the 16th stage "Obviously we feel great, a fantastic rally, a lot of driving. Next for us is the Circuit of Kerry, a bit more practice before the big one, the Circuit of Ireland".  Second placed Liam McCarthy wasn't too disappointed to be runner up and said "Donie had that extra pace, and anyway we were in a drain yesterday, we're happy to make the finish at all".  For Melvyn Evans it was a fraught enough rally, his Subaru Impreza suspension just not quite right for the stages and Melvyn did well to work his way up to 3rd and hold on to it. 

Kieran O'Callaghan had a great run to win gpN and finish 5th overall with Gabriel Martin moving into 8th and 2nd in gpN.  Gabriel was having a massive dice with James O'Sullivan but unfortunately James has crashed on this last stage.  The 023 Tiles car blocked the road and the following drivers were all delayed, now running on a "notional" time for the stage.  Mark Morgan was 3rd GpN and provisionally we have Alan Ring in 4th, the Munster Joinery car edging ahead of Eddie Garry's similar Subaru.

Phil Collins slipped from 4th place with his stage 11 accident and puncture, so 9th at the finish was perhaps an anti climax, but still it was a great drive from the cross-channel visitor. Phil's Escort could hardly make it up the hill after the end of the stage, he had wrung every last ounce out of it. He joked "Job finished, another case of might have been, could have been, should have been!"  Anthony O'Halloran finished well up and won his class in his Manta.  Latest news we have is that Joe Connolly could well have won the Historics from Frank Cunningham, but in truth there were so many blockages on the stages today that the Historics got doing very few competitive miles.

Late news: James O'Sullivan has managed to get his Lancer out of this final stage, although with having caused the blockage it remains to be seen whether he will get a time. Finally for now many thanks and well done to everyone in the club for such a good rally. Thanks also to all who helped and supported the RallyNews. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net