RALLY NEWS
NO.3 Hawkhurst/Saturday 6pm
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE BEWSHAUGH
1st (1) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N)
50.23.9
2nd (7) Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Lancer N)
50.44.5
3rd (12) Ryan Champion/Craig Thorley (Lancer N)
50.56.9
4th (14) Stuart Jones/Craig Parry (Lancer N)
51.19.5
5h (10) Martin Rowe/Robbie Durant (Impreza N)
51.44.9
6h (15) Phillip Morrow/Daniel Barritt (Lancer N)
51.55.5
7th (2) David Higgins/Ieuan Thomas (Lancer N)
51.59.8
(6) Jonny Milner/Nicky Beech (Lancer N) 51.59.8
9th (9) Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Suzuki Ignis)
52.11.6
10th (4) Alister McRae/Gordon Noble (Impreza N)
52.29.2
11th (11) Julian Reynolds/Stewart Merry (Impreza
N) 52.30.4
Mark Higgins by his own admission isn’t fastest on every
stage of this Pirelli Rally but he’s “there or thereabouts” on most
of them. Ironically in stage 7 Bewshaugh he forgot to switch on the
electronic diff and was fastest by almost 2s from Stuart Jones with
David Higgins just 1s behind. The switch to group N cars for this
championship has produced very close times indeed. David Higgins
for example was in 2nd place, then slipped to 4th
place when his front differential gave trouble then slipped to 9th
with a 50s penalty when he left service late after changing the
errant diff. Gwyndaf Evans in 2nd place felt that stage
7 had a very loose surface, at one point he thought he had a
puncture, but overall he reckons the car feels good, he’s pleased to
be here and said. “Out of the box this isn’t bad”.
Ryan Champion in 3rd had all sorts of dramas
getting into service here at Hawkhurst when his Lancer developed a
clutch problem and he had to take a real run at getting up the
slight incline into the service area. Stuart Jones in 4th
had a really good run over the last few stages. Martin Rowe in 5th
has picked a softer compound tyre, says he has blown the cobwebs
away and was going well. Phillip Morrow is 6th is doing
an amazing job considering that his Lancer has no 5th
gear and if there is one rally that you do need that particular cog
for it is here in Kielder on the Pirelli. Jonny Milner in 7th
dropped from 5th place when his Lancer conked out on a
road section out to stage 5. Jonny tried everything, changed the
pumps, waggled all the wires he could see, to no avail and then
suddenly the car burst into life. Unfortunately for Jonny he was 5m
late into service and incurred 50s penalty.
David Higgins also had that penalty that we mentioned above
to be equal 7th with Milner. Then Alister McRae in 9th
is still keeping it neat and tidy, trying to recover from his
earlier puncture, although Alister laughed when he said about the
neat and tidy and went on to recount that he nearly had a haymaker
on a left hander in Bewshaugh that tightened! Tapio Laukkanen has
dropped out of the leaderboard following a 2m puncture in stage 6.
Tapio said there was a large rock lying in a rut and he just
couldn’t miss it, his comment then “just bad luck I guess”. Guy
Wilks has also dropped out of the leaderboard, something in the rear
suspension seemingly to have come adrift and Guy was working at the
car himself as he waited to go into service. Conrad Rautenbach had a
slow time through stage 7 which he is at a loss to explain but it
dropped him just outside the leaderboard.
Stephen Petch has banged the front and back of his Impreza,
one of the incidents happening when the car was stuck in 5th
gear and at the end of a long straight he just couldn’t get it round
a tight left corner. Stephen reckons he lost 2m in stage 6 and then
another 2m in stage 7. Barry Clark seems to have recovered from his
dramas this morning and is a lot happier with his Fiesta, has
settled down a bit and is 19th overall approximately.
Shaun Gallagher has built a new Lancer for this event, it was all a
bit of a last minute panic, but the Letterkenny man was lying 12th
o/a a couple of stages ago. Connor McCloskey dropped back slightly
when his Lancer sustained a puncture that cost 2m.
More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
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