UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 7 Breenagh

1^st (10) Kevin Lynch/Allan Harryman (Impreza WRC) 40.00.4

2^nd (1) Gareth MacHale/Paul Nagle (Focus WRC) 40.19.3

3^rd (6) Andrew Nesbitt/James O'Brien (Lancer WRC) 40.19.5

4^th (5) Derek McGarrity/Chris Patterson (Impreza WRC) 40.20.5

5^th (11) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 40.25.8

6^th (2) Matthew Wilson/Michael Orr (Focus WRC) 40.45.2

7^th (19) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Lancer WRC) 40.50.4

8^th (9) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC) 41.00.2

9^th (12) Paul Harris/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 41.02.0

10^th (8) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 41.02.1

11^th (15) Stephen Murphy/M Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 41.10.8

12^th (7) Tim McNulty/Anthony Nestor (Impreza WRC) 41.25.9

Car No.3 Colin McRae/Nicky Grist (Metro 6R4) 40.45.5: (Colin is running in the National Rally and his times would put him 7^th o/a in the International.

Heavy rain was the order of the day when the top cars left Letterkenny, but the rain eased slightly when they tackled the first Breenagh stage although the roads were still pretty wet. Main stories from that opening Saturday test were that the 2 Mitsubishis of Mark Higgins & Andrew Nesbitt were very fast, while Tim McNulty’s Subaru suffered a puncture.  First on the road, Kevin Lynch, said he kept it all pretty neat and had a minor flutter when he passed the spot where he crashed last year. As we said above McNulty had the puncture, finished the stage on the flat and changed the offending wheel on the road section. Unfortunately McNulty held up Gareth Jones slightly in the stage, Jones also suffering a small intercom problem.  Still on the subject of McNulty he had a fortunate reprieve last night when the Stewards of the rally met to discuss the subject of his “stolen” time cards.  Tim only had a bit of paper with times on for stage 6 rather than his proper time card.  Anyway the Stewards decided that there would be no penalty applied. 

Gareth MacHale had a good run although he had a wee bit of a heart stopping moment when his Focus refused to fire up at the pre start service area. Derek McGarrity said he was trying no heroics. Eamonn Boland lost time, around about 30s, when his Focus stalled at the start line of the stage. Andrew Nesbitt said he concentrated on keeping it tidy but he was 2^nd fastest on the stage. Mark Higgins was fastest even though he was struggling with a long brake pedal. Colin McRae had a lucky escape when his Metro 6R4 had a high speed excursion up a bank and bounced back on the road with little time loss. Co driver Nicky Grist said. “It was a hairy moment luckily there was nothing solid to hit”. 

Eugene Donnelly turned in a decent time for the stage, not fastest but 8s down on Higgins, still a good time but Eugene is way back in 55^th place following yesterday’s fire in the Corolla’s engine bay and then some road penalties. The Pirelli Tarmac Champion as an awful lot of ground to make up, and these guys at the front of the field at flat out.

In Group N this morning Shaun Gallagher was fastest to maintain his gpN lead over Garry Jennings. Michael Curran is 3^rd, Roy White 4^th and Phillip Morrow 5^th.  

Class leaders in the International section included Andrew Bushe in his Saxo leading class 6. Keith McElhinney led class 2 in his Civic. Eugene Meegan led class 3 in his new Renault Clio.   

A stunning piece of news from outside the rally this morning is that Fermanagh’s Niall McShea has received an MBE for services to Motorsport in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.  Niall is a former Micra Cup champion class winner on the British and Tarmac championships, won the Roger Clark Rally Award and then became the Production World Rally Champion.  Niall married Letterkenny girl Noreen McDaid just before last Christmas and is here on the rally. Very many congratulations Niall…..

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net  (with thanks to Michael Patterson & Zoe Todd and thanks also to Tommy Mullan for the tea!)

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