RALLY NEWS NO.6
Parc Ferme/Galway/Saturday 6.30
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 8
1st (2) Eugene
Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.02.53.8
2nd (1) Austin
MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.02.56.8
3rd (8) Peadar
Hurson/Glenn Patterson (Impreza WRC) 1.03.44.1
4th (3) Derek
McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Fabia WRC) 1.03.58.0
5th (4) Eamonn
Boland/Francis Regan (Impreza WRC) 1.04.24.5
6th (15) Gareth
MacHale/Paul Nagle (Corolla WRC) 1.05.07.9
7th (11) Denis
Cronin/Helen O'sullivan (Impreza WRC) 1.05.37.5
8th (6) Kevin
Lynch/Gordon Noble (Impreza WRC) 1.05.38.2
9th (25) Colm
Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 1.05.55.8
10th (5) Tim
McNulty/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 1.07.03.3
Lough Cutra, the last Saturday stage,
lay witness to a fabulous battle between Austin MacHale in his Focus
WRC, and Eugene Donnelly in his Corolla WRC. Austin started the 9.8
mile stage leading the rally by a second, but Donnelly was over 4s
faster than Austin, so he now leads the rally going into the
overnight halt by over 3 seconds. The rally was well on schedule,
but that last stage was held for a while as the officials checked
out every safety aspect, so it was cold and getting dark, but that
did not deter the lead cars. Donnelly completed the stage in
8m33.8s. Not too bad for a 7 year old Corolla, especially when
Eugene nearly had the pants scared off him earlier today when his
brakes failed. It bodes well for tomorrow’s 9 stages. Austin has
every chance to making this his 7th Galway victory. But
that man Eugene is going to be very hard to beat even though his
Corolla has a leaking exhaust manifold gasket. Third placed Peadar
Hurson has had slight gearbox trouble with his Subaru but otherwise
has gone exceptionally well today. Derek McGarrity has had his
share of niggly problems, but still holds 4th and has
settled down to driving his new Skoda Fabia, Derek less than a
second slower than MacHale through that Lough Cutra stage. Eamonn
Boland in 5th and Gareth MacHale in 6th have
each had really good steady runs today.
Tim McNulty on stage times has his new
Impreza WRC S10 in 6th place, but a 2 minute road penalty
has knocked him back to 10th. This isn’t cast in stone
and no doubt Tim’s co driver Eugene O’Donnell will be putting in a
very strong query tonight, so we won’t be surprised if it is a
different leaderboard starting Sunday. Denis Cronin has had some
slow times today, and some very quick ones. Denis at a loss to
explain why he is so quick on some stages and not on others. Still,
the West Cork man is in 7th overall which can’t be too
bad. Kevin Lynch has his Impreza going well again after the broken
fan belt episode earlier, but perhaps there is a slight edge missing
now that he is not fighting for the lead. He still set a good time
through stage 8, just 6s slower than Eugene, but not stunningly
quick the way he was earlier. Double British Champion Jonny Milner
was lying 19th after stage 7, Jonny setting times
equivalent to around 6th fastest, and not making much
headway following his big delays with the brake troubles.
Colm Murphy continues to do a
brilliant job to lead group N, he really turned on the style earlier
today, and indeed had another quick gpN time through stage 8, and is
under no immediate threat from behind. Garry Jennings was faster
than Seamus Leonard through stage 8, but Leonard is still 2nd
gpN, Jennings 3rd. Willie Fannin is battling his way back
up the top 20 after his stage 4 problems and similarly Roy White is
setting competitive group N times, but is away down the order
following his stage 3 accident.
In the National section of the
rally up to stage 7, Pat Kelly was leading in his Subaru from
Anthony O’Halloran with Paul Gallagher 3rd. In the
Historics Sean Tracey was setting the pace in his BMW 2002 from
Mervyn Johnston in the Mini Cooper. Frank Cunningham, also in a Mini
Cooper, had problems with brakes and clutch but still hung on to 3rd.
Adrian Kermode seemed to be leading the Post Historics in his newly
built Porsche. More news in the morning….BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
