The tough Ballaghbeama stage produced some interesting
times with Eamon Boland being credited with fastest on a time
of 9.13.6 in his Focus WRC. Tim McNulty 2nd fastest on 9.16.6.
Gareth Jones had a 9.27.8. Derek McGarrity 9.29.5 and Eugene Donnelly
9.36.1. Donnelly shook his head and said. “I suppose anything’s
possible. I could see Tim’s car at the finish of the stage
I don’t really see how he could have been 20s faster.”
The Pirelli Tarmac champion went on to say. “I’m feeling
a bit better today, although the motivation isn’t really
there. I enjoyed Molls Gap but before the rally I set the gearing
to suit yesterday’s very fast stages, its wrong now for
these tighter roads, although I tried to push hard. We won’t
have time to change the gearing today”.
It is interesting that the drives are going through
big long tough stages like Ballaghbeama in under 10 minutes. In
the bedrooms of the Gleneagle Hotel is a Guide to Killarney and
under interesting drives it says “ballaghabeam and Caragh
Lake a very full half day’s drive, not for the faint hearted.
The surfaced road is narrow and uneven with space for only one
vehicle, few passing places, some precipitous drops and a maximum
speed of 15-20kph. A very special route, high recommended”.
It would appear that Tim McNulty, Derek McGarrity etc., haven’t
read the Guide Book! Not as regards the speed anyway….
McNulty’s Pirelli shod Impreza is running
impeccably while Derek McGarrity confirmed that the mechanics
were able to fix the water injection system, but Derek himself
is feeling decidedly off colour and spent most of last night in
the bathroom.
Gareth Jones in 4th place had a clean run this
morning while Stephen Murphy felt his tyres going off. Denis Cronin
is still worried about his Subaru turbo pressure.
In Group N Alan Ring set a fastest category time
through Ballaghbeama 9s up on Seamus Leonard. Seamus continues
to lead group N. Roy White had a poor time through Ballaghbeama,
Roy reckoning his lancer was suffering a broken front drive shaft
and indeed was passed by Willie Fannin in the stage.
In the Modifieds Phil Collins set a time under
10 minutes in his Escort while his closest pursuer Mark Courtney
was 10m18s in his Celica. Mark told us that when the car gets
very hot the water injection stops working. Wesley Patterson maintains
3rd in the modifieds while Johnny O’Sullivan has brought
his Escort WRC up into 4th, local Mazda man Johnny faster than
Collins through both this morning’s opening stages. However,
O’Sullivan is 2 minutes behind the flying Hereford man,
Johnny still trying to recover from the earlier broken drive shaft.
More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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