RALLY NEWS NO.4 Finish of stage 4/Saturday
1.30
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 4
Flowerhill
1st (1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC)
35.35.0
2nd (2) Tim McNulty/Anthony Nestor (Impreza WRC)
35.37.6
3rd (6) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC)
36.10.1
4th (11) Peadar Hurson/Damien Connolly (Impreza
WRC) 36.18.7
5th (3) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman
(Impreza WRC) 36.34.9
6th (8) Ray Breen/Andrew Purcell (Focus WRC)
36.46.2
7th (5) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Focus WRC)
36.57.8
8th (4) Andrew Nesbitt/James O'Brien (Impreza
WRC) 37.04.5
9th (9) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza
WRC) 37.25.8
10th (22) James Foley/Dominic Markey (Lancer N)
38.02.5
11th (139) Philip Morrow/Derek Brannigan
(Lancer N) 38.02.9
12th (138) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N)
38.10.9
Eugene Donnelly powered his Corolla WRC through stages 3
and 4 to set fastest times on both, the Tarmac Champion commenting
at the end of Flowerhill. “We had a high speed moment, it was
still very slippy, we were pushing very hard.” Eugene’s brother
Charlie told us. “It was my fault really that the suspension
wasn’t quite right on the first 2 stages, I was just too lenient
on the settings, not hard enough”. Eugene’s fastest times put him
into the lead ahead of Tim McNulty, the Pierse backed Subaru still
hampered with a sticking throttle. The engineers didn’t get much
of a chance to look at it at service as whenever the Subaru came
in they suddenly discovered that there was oil running out of the
gearbox, which then took priority. Tim said at the end of stage
4. “Its really difficult, the throttle is stuck wide open through
hairpins and junctions, very hard. Full revs everywhere.” Derek
McGarrity has lost time with an off road excursion in stage 3. He
said that on a hairpin left into 4 right the car slithered into a
big deep ditch. Derek lost approximately 30s with that incident
and then through stage 4 there seemed to be something twisted or
bent in the steering which slowed him as well and he was down over
10s on the quickest times. Andrew Nesbitt left service after
stage 2 determined to speed things up a bit. However, although he
had a decent time in stage 3 it wasn’t earth shattering, as his
Subaru lost 5th gear part of the way through the stage.
He has just completed stage 4 without that 5th gear and
dropped perhaps 10s and he now has stage 5 to do before service.
Peadar Hurson had a really good run and he has moved up
the order. Gareth Jones slipped back slightly having stalled his
Subaru in both stage 3 and 4. Austin MacHale, Eamonn Boland and
Ray Breen all reported good runs. Aaron MacHale has got the read
out system inside the Corolla working properly, now knows what
gear he is in and has speeded up, but lost a lot of time earlier.
Aaron is down in 23rd place. Maurice Gass didn’t
appear at the end of stage 4 – reported he has driven the car back
to service so would appear to have retired. Maurice’s son Darren
is going quite well in the MSport Fiesta. Darren in 24th
overall and leading class 6. Some of the other class leaders
include Eugene Meegan leading cl.3 and 25th o/a in his
Civic. While Damien Tourish is leading cl.2 in his Civic.
In Group N Philip Morrow set a cracking time through stage
4 although James Foley still leads gpN overall. Colm Murphy was 4s
down on Morrow, Colm starting to enjoy himself, although still
having problems with the Impreza gear change. Seamus Leonard is
on a total of 39.19.2. Alan Ring 38.43.2 in his New Subaru. Kevin
Kelleher is having a subdued day and is outside the leading gpN
pack. James Cullen has also slipped slightly, his Lancer delayed
by a lengthy overshoot in stage 4. Roy White is going like a train
again, setting very competitive times but has lost so much time
with his stage 2 accident he is completely out of the picture.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
**For LIVE SMS results: Irish mobiles text RALLY
ITC to 53503: UK mobiles text RALLY ITC to 60066. Irish cost
30cents. UK 25p
