UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 Blackadder
1st
(2) Derek McGarrity/Diarmuid Falvey (Impreza WRC) 56.36.4
2nd
(1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 57.16.9
3rd
(4) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 57.43.9
4th
(12) Rory Galligan/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 58.27.4
5th
(11) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N) 58.33.3
6th
(16) Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Ignis) 58.46.7
7th
(15) Ryan Champion/Craig Thorley (Lancer N) 58.51.7
8th
(17) Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Lancer N) 58.52.8
9th
(21) Seamus Leonard/John McCafferty (Lancer N) 59.20.2
10th
(24) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 59.30.0
11th
(26) Jonny Milner/Nick Beech (Lancer N) 59.41.3
12th
(30) Stuart Jones/Craig Parry (Lancer N) 1.00.09.7
Eamonn
Boland was fastest through stage 8 in his Focus WRC, by just a split
second from Derek McGarrity, the latter quickest through stage 9 in
his Subaru. Early rally leader Eugene Donnelly really struggled
through stage 9 with his Corolla WRC on 2 wheel drive. Eugene
thought after stage 7 that it was a prop shaft had broken but it is
looking more like it is the centre differential. This had still to
be confirmed by engineer Derek McGeehan, but if it is the centre
diff it is doing to take 30 minutes to change and the service time
is only 20 minutes, so Eugene could well have road penalties to add
to his loss over this morning's 3 stages. We said earlier that his
time loss on stage 7 was 18s when really it should have read 28s.
Eugene
Donnelly commented here at service. "I said in Donegal we were
having a fantastic run with the car, maybe the luck has run out now.
I really wanted to win this one, but we'll keep going, its still
worth it for the championship". Derek McGarrity commented.
"Everything went well over the last couple of stages although I
banged a front rim on a 3 right plus don't cut, and of course I cut
it as you do, but luckily the tyre didn't go down". Eamonn Boland
reports no problems, all going well. Jon Ingram was lying 6th
overall and his Focus WRC has retired with a reported clutch
problem.
In Group N
Gwyndaf Evans has turned in a string of fastest times this morning
to move from an overnight 10th to 9th ahead of
Seamus Leonard. Leonard is the leading Irish competitor in group N
and he said. "I'm amazed at the pace of these cars in front, I'm
keeping it clean and tidy. I never thought there would be this much
difference". Possibly one of the differences for Seamus is that he
has only been here once before, that was 4 years ago, and the roads
around here are pretty specialised. Gwyndaf Evans feels that the
difference this morning for him has been the change of tyres.
Rory
Galligan continues to lead the group N category overall and he is
certainly keeping Mark Higgins at bay, but of course looking over
his should at Gwyndaf. Rory said. "Everything's fine, some of our
notes are maybe just not quick enough and we've had to adjust our
braking points, these new brakes are simply fantastic and these
Performance Friction brakes people are giving us tremendous
technical support with the carbon metallic pads. This is a real
tarmac car now, maybe a little more fine tuning required, there's a
bit of a variance between narrow square junctions and wide square
junctions, but its all pretty good". Mark Higgins is driving his
socks off in the Impreza trying to get ahead of the Lancers while
Ryan Champion has turned in a couple of really good times, just 0.2
of a second slower than Gwyndaf through Whiteadder. Faster than
Galligan and Higgins. David Higgins in the back up works Lancer is
having a miserable rally. His latest escapade is a broken front
drive shaft and also the bonnet blew up. Jonny Milner has been in
the wars with the chicanes, more bangs and bashes on his Lancer. Roy
White was in agony here when he reached service having jarred his
back on a big Blackadder jump and he has also damaged the chassis of
the car which to add insult to injury conked out for a minute after
the jump. Colm Murphy has been getting a bit of a move on this
morning to move into the top 10. Conrad Rautenbach is just inside
the top 20 and he lost some time having picked too soft a compound
tyre this morning. Phillip Morrow is also inside the top 20, his
times this morning just a few seconds off the pace but still going
well. Shaun Gallagher we noted had retired last night, he has
re-joined under Super Rally rules and the reason for his retirement
was a blown fuse after the re-fuel although there was also a panic
about a missing time card.
In Super
1600 Guy Wilks has now got a huge lead, Roman Kresta's Fiesta having
stopped for 3 mins. At the ford in stage 8 and then lost more time
in stage 9 when he cut a corner at a junction too tight and clipped
a concrete rock and suffered a puncture.
More news
later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
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