|
|
RALLY
NEWS NO.8 End of stage 9/Sunday Noon
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 Churchtown
1st (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 1.19.28.5
2nd (1) Markko Martin/Dave Senior (Impreza WRC) 1.20.26.2
3rd (4) Andrew Nesbitt/James O'Brien (Lancer WRC) 1.20.34.9
4th (3) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.20.54.4
5th (9) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 1.21.41.1
6th (7) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 1.23.36.0
7th (10) Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Focus WRC) 1.23.41.4
8th (17) Melvyn Evans/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 1.23.54.1
9th (12) Ray Breen/Andrew Purcell (Focus WRC) 1.24.13.0
10th (24) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 1.24.53.2
The opening Sunday stage of this Cork 20 generally provides a bit
of drama and this morning was no exception as overnight leader Guy
Wilks has crashed his Subaru out of the rally. Crashed out is perhaps
a bit strong. The road, although drying, was still very slippery
and Guy’s Impreza slithered a fairly high speed into a straw
bale chicane smashing the radiator pack and the oil coolers. Guy
stopped further down the road, or maybe slipped off, that is not
as yet clear. The next 3 cars, Higgins, Martin & Nesbitt, went
by thinking that everything was OK. But then Guy’s car, the
Pirelli test Impreza S11, burst into flames. He put up the SOS board
and Eugene Donnelly stopped as did the cars behind to try and assist.
When Eugene got to stage finish he told us “The car was badly
on fire and its testament to the new extinguishers that they were
not worth a damn. We had one of the old extinguishers and that put
the flames out. It looked like it wasn’t a massive impact
but there was a fair bit of damage”.
Eugene went on to say “The other side of it is, we were having
a real good cut!” Mark Higgins is the new rally leader and
he said at stage finish. “That was hard work, the road was
dry and greasy and possibly we were on the wrong tyre”. Interestingly,
when Andrew Nesbitt came to stage finish he said. “It was
slippy, but Dick (Cormack) was right in his choice”. When
Andrew’s Lancer moved off Pirelli man Dick who was standing
listening shook his head and said. “You can’t win; Mark
and Andrew were on the same tyre!” Markko Martin said. “I
think we are on the right tyre but it was slippy as hell”.
Higgins stopped the clock on 10.32.4. Markko Martin 10.40.5. Andrew
Nesbitt 10.43.6. This is almost a reflection of yesterday afternoon’s
performance. Martin Brady has just phoned us from the end of stage
10, John’s Bridge, and the pattern would appear to be the
same there with Markko 4s down on Higgins and Nesbitt 5s down on
Markko. Donnelly 5s down on Nesbitt. Gareth Jones 3s down on Donnelly
and Austin MacHale 9s down on Jones. The only driver to break the
pattern so far on that stage 10 is Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen,
the teenager 4th fastest.
Looking back to stage 9 – the drivers after Andrew Nesbitt
will provisionally get the same time as Andrew for the purposes
of working out the results. This means that there is no change to
the back end of the top 10, or indeed to the group N picture with
Colm Murphy just ahead of James Foley, Roy Whit3e 3rd and Keith
Cronin 4th.
There is an old saying about an ill wind….Gareth Jones had
a puncture on that stage 9 this morning and would have struggled
towards stage finish but was of course held up behind Wilks’
incident.
There were no changes really to the overnight results. One small
thing was that Aaron MacHale has got re-started further up the order
on safety grounds. Aaron was 36th overnight and starts in the top
20 this morning. A few positions of interest in the overnight results
include: Steve Perez in 18th place. Denis Cronin 22nd following
his puncture. Class leaders included: Brian O’Mahony in his
S1600 Puma. Eugene Meegan: Tommy Doyle: Ian Chadwick: Padraig Neville.
Phil Collins continues to lead the National Rally ahead of Paul
Purtill, Peter Kelly and John Hickey. Hickey’s Escort with
the Subaru running gear broke a drive shaft at one point yesterday
but lost little time. In the Historics Mike Doody led in his Mini
from Denis Moynihan with Martin Sheehan 3rd, both in Escorts. Martin
Ward was 4th in his Manta. Adrian Kermode 5th in his Porsche 911.
John Keatley was 6th. John’s Porsche is a full Historic car
whereas the ones in front are Post Historic. More news later. BRIAN
& LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net ** FOR LIVE SMS RESULTS: Irish
mobiles text RALLY ITC to 53030: UK mobiles text RALLY ITC to 60066:
Cost 30c/25p
|
