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Rally News No.3 Service In
Mountrath Mart Sunday 1.30pm
Unofficial
Leaderboard After Stage 4
1st (1)
Ray Breen/Andrew Purcell (Focus WRC) 32.08
2nd (3) Martin Doherty/Andrew Cullen (Impreza WRC) 33.09
3rd (6) Aaron McHale/Gerard McGonigle (Corolla WRC)
34.33
= (17) James M Stafford/James F Stafford (Lancer N) 34.33
5th (12) David James/Derek Brannigan (Focus WRC) 34.40
6th (19) Darragh Raferty/Martin Brady (Impreza WRC)
34.49
7th (20) P J McGrath/Killian Duffy (Impreza N) 34.52
8th (15) Ian Barrett/Eoin O’Flaherty (Lancer N) 34.54
9th (21) John Kelly / Robbie Shaw (Lancer N) 35.15
10th (18) Mark Courtney/Paul Kelly (Celica) 35.23
11th (164) Stephen Cullen/Edward Roche (Impreza N)
35.37
12th
(25) Mike Quinn/Sean Enright (Escort Mk2) 36.06
Ray Breen steered his Focus WRC into service
looking as cool as a cucumber and had not even broken sweat as he
cruised over stages three and four. The crew beat the bogey by six
seconds on stage three and were fastest over SS4 by 13 seconds from
Aaron McHale. Ray has turned down the engine management on the Focus
and is running very much in a conservative frame of mind, his biggest
problems so far coming from keeping up his concentration. Martin
Doherty is pleased with his pace in second while Aaron McHale has
jumped up the leaderboard following his earlier puncture but admits to
be taking a little bit of time to get settled but was happy with his
performance over those two stages.
Early GpN leader
Ian Barrett is having a dreadful rally as his gear box mounting has
broken and all the mechanical bits including the engine are moving
around so much and the crew are struggling to get through the stages,
and are dropping back off the GpN pace. Very much on the GpN pace are
the James Stafford crew who are absolutely flying in their Lancer,
fastest GpN car on both stages three and four, they took chunks of
time from everyone else and have jumped up to fourth overall. John
Kelly continues to run well in his Lancer but is experiencing bad
brake fade on the longer stages.
Tommy Graham got
going again after his first stage accident but is running almost at
the back of the field. Tommy told us here at Service “I just caught
and passed Aaron who was struggling with a puncture and came to a
slippy bit about six miles into the stage and slid wide and clipped a
telegraph pole” the accident damaging the TCA and the oil cooler. The
crew were able to get to the next stage but incurred a minutes penalty
in lateness and were then able to get the car straightened out a
little in dead time thus there lateness on the road. Including
penalties the crew are on a total of 18.49 and could very well get
back into the top ten before the end of the day.
In the 205
challenge Thomas Melia was leading a very closely fought battle after
the first couple of stages and Mitsubishi works driver Rory Galligan
was keeping a watchful eye over the competitors and was telling us
inparticular about Noel O’Donnell who is out for the first time in a
205 and was up to an impressive third. Liam Wall is reportedly
stopped in stage three thus leaving Mike Quinn the leading 2wd in his
Escort Mk2. More News Later …… Michael Patterson & Zoë Todd |
