RALLY NEWS NO.6                 Omagh/Service/Saturday 3.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 7 Mary Gray 2

1^st (3) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.03.19.3

2^nd (7) Peadar Hurson/Damien Connolly (Impreza WRC) 1.04.20.8

3^rd (2) Derek McGarrity/Chris Patterson (Impreza WRC) 1.04.34.4

4^th (6) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 1.04.34.9

5^th (5) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.05.14.6

6^th (9) Sean Devine/Killian Duffy (Impreza WRC) 1.06.40.5

7^th (11) Garry Jennings/Rory Kennedy (Lance3r N) 1.06.52.3

8^th (8) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 1.07.02.1

9^th (16) Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh (Lancer N) 1.07.15.8

10^th (21) James Cullen/Reba Graham (Lancer N) 1.07.27.3

11^th (23) John McGlaughlin/David McElroy (Lancer N) 1.08.26.8

12^th (26) Connor McCloskey/Crawford Henderson (Lancer N) 1.08.27.0

“A good day at the office then” a bystander said to Eugene Donnelly when he brought his Corolla WRC into the service area to finish off the first day of this Circuit of Ireland.  Eugene’s lead over 2^nd placed Peadar Hurson is over a minute.  “The car has never been so good over the bumps, we’re even taking the cautions out. The set up the boys have put in for this rally is just brilliant. Having said that we’re still having to drive really hard and we couldn’t take a chance over the last 2 stages the way the weather is, and possibly picked too soft a compound tyre”.  Peadar Hurson would have been a little bit closer to Donnelly in the overnight standings except for a huge moment on the last stage when his Impreza slid off the road slightly at a square right and slithered and banged along a hedge and a ditch before bouncing back on to the road. Happily with no damage, but possibly 15s slower than he should have been for the stage.  Derek McGarrity has done well to pull back into 3^rd place following his earlier clutch problems. Derek also saying that for the final loop of stages he would have been better putting on a slick dry weather tyre.

Eamonn Boland and Austin MacHale in their respective Focus WRC machines reported no dramas over the last few stages. Sean Devine in 6^th continues to improve now that he is much happier with the handling of the Impreza. Gareth Jones is in the same boat and indeed set a good time for stage 7, just a couple of seconds down on MacHale and 1s faster than Boland. Tim McNulty is 15^th in the overnight standings. Tim was 16^th after stage 4 following his punctures and we thought was going to make a charge up the leaderboard, but in stage 6 he had a time consuming spin, his cause not helped by having picked wet weather tyres thinking the stages would be muddy when in fact they were bone dry. Tim is definitely treating the rally now as a testing exercise.

In Group N Garry Jennings still has his nose well in front despite having put too many cuts in his tyres just in case it had turned out to be damp. Seamus Leonard holds 2^nd group N but was disappointed to have lost quite a few seconds in stage 7 when he caught up with the struggling Colm Murphy’s Impreza. Murphy had a couple of overshoots in the stage and commented afterwards. “It was a bad stage for me and indeed a bad day”.  James Cullen set a couple of fastest gpN times this afternoon so he’s far from being out of the picture. While John McGlaughlin, Connor McCloskey and Roy White are in 11^th, 12^th and 13^th places, just ready to pounce in group N if anything happens to the leading 3. 

Looking back a few stages Brian O’Mahony was leading class A6 in his Ford Puma while Eugene Meegan was leading cl.N3 in his Civic Type R. Tommy Doyle was leading cl.N2 in his Civic, although this information is from after stage 4 so may have changed.  Some retirements include – Danny McBride who went out in stage 3 and Dermot McGeady who retired his Lancer in stage 4 when the turbo blew.

More news in the morning. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.

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