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RALLY NEWS NO.5 Service/Saturday 1.45
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 4 Mullaghanish
1st (5) Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Impreza WRC) 37.23.8
2nd (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 37.54.9
3rd (1) Markko Martin/Dave Senior (Impreza WRC) 38.10.4
4th (4) Andrew Nesbitt/James O'Brien (Lancer WRC) 38.18.0
5th (9) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 38.25.0
6th (3) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 38.42.6
7th (7) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 39.54.1
8th (10) Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Focus WRC) 39.59.1
9th (17) Melvyn Evans/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 40.10.3
10th (12) Ray Breen/Andrew Purcell (Focus WRC) 40.22.4
Guy Wilks continues to astound the fans with his speed through the
stages, the young Durham man fastest again through stages 3 and
4. When his Subaru arrived here at service Guy took time out to
tell us. “Its pretty difficult, the weather is changing fast,
its hard to pick the right Pirelli tyres, we had a wet tyre for
the first stage but then the car was moving about a lot in stage
2. We will try and keeping it going”. Mark Higgins was delayed
at the end of stage 4 when his FitzSamuel Insurance backed Subaru
incurred a puncture. Mark lost little time in stage and seemed to
clock into service on time. Markko Martin is getting cheered on
by loads of fans with Estonian flags out on the stages and when
he got here he said. “Maybe my tyre choice wasn’t the
best, there was a lot of standing water. It is a long time since
I have driven a rally car and this seems very very fast”.
Andrew Nesbitt said. “Its quite a pace out there, everything’s
OK”.
Gareth Jones reported one slight stall at a hairpin but otherwise
OK. Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly commented. “Maybe I’m
just not going hard enough. We had a misfire for the first 2 stages,
and then possibly a wrong tyre choice, but I’m always a slow
starter and the boys in front are going hard”. Austin MacHale
told us “We had a half spin at a junction, I’m still
a bit rusty, haven’t done a rally since Donegal”.
Andreas Mikkelsen seemed fine. Ray Breen said he fell asleep in
stage 3 and then encountered a huge blast of rain in stage 4. Liam
McCarthy is down in 12th place having survived a truck running into
the back of his Corolla on a road section, but a rear left tyre
was rubbing against the body work in the stage which was a bit worrying.
Steve Perez has the brakes sorted out on his Focus but was having
some wiper problems through the heavy rain. Aaron MacHale feels
he needs the suspension adjust3ed on his Corolla WRC, Aaron well
down the order following his stage 2 puncture. Denis Cronin is also
well down the order following his puncture, his times now respectable.
In Group N James Foley has moved to the front with Colm Murphy 2nd
gpN, Colm saying that he is entertaining the crowds. Roy White is
3rd in the category, his Lancer back on song following earlier electrical
problems. Keith Cronin set a 2nd fastest gpN time in stage 4 and
he is 4th gpN at the moment. Alan Ring is 20th o/a just behind Kevin
Kelleher, Alan says he is now starting to wake up. Ian Barrett is
losing time with further differential troubles and also a spin.
News from down the field is that Paul Manton has had an accident
in stage 4, the Cashel man’s Citroen blocking the road for
a couple of minutes, otherwise OK. More news later.
BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net (with thanks to Ciara
Conlan and Martin Brady)
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