RALLY NEWS NO.7 Millstreet Service/Saturday 5.45

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 8 Knocknagree
1st (4) Tim McNulty/Anthony Nestor (Impreza WRC) 54.10.8
2nd (1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 54.40.2
3rd (2) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Impreza WRC) 54.56.6
4th (16) Stephen Murphy/M Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 55.35.6
5TH (14) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 55.37.1
6TH (8) Denis Cronin/Helen O'Sullivan (Impreza WRC) 56.09.8
7TH (3) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 56.41.6
8TH (12) Aaron MacHale/Craig Parry (Focus WRC) 57.27.3
9TH (27) Seamus Leonard/John McCafferty (Lancer N) 57.29.2
10TH (9) Nigel Hicklin/Diarmuid Falvey (Impreza WRC) 58.09.0
11TH (25) Alan Ring/Brian Duggan (Impreza N) 58.12.0
12TH (11) JJ Fleming/Robbie Ward (Focus WRC) 58.34.7

Tim McNulty powered his Pierse backed Subaru to fastest times through stages 7 and 8 to increase his lead at the front of this Killarney Rally of the Lakes Rally to 30s over Eugene Donnelly. Derek McGarrity is holding on to 3rd despite his Subaru giving some problems with the water injection system, and indeed at one point during a stage, Derek’s Impreza filled up with smoke but then cleared. Stephen Murphy is turning in an impressive display having been from rallying for quite a long time and coming back in a brand new car to mix it with the best of the tarmac drivers. Murphy was only a second slower than Donnelly through stages 7 and 8. Pirelli Tarmac champion Eugene Donnelly looks very comfortable in 2nd place in his Corolla WRC, but having said that Eugene is in very subdued form, not particularly enjoying the very fast stages but still being his usual competitive self.

Gareth Jones was very disappointed to have slipped from a very solid 2nd to 5th place following his spin and off road excursion in stage 7 and then his time was just a few seconds off the pace in stage 8, indicating that the car isn’t handling quite as it should. Indeed the mechanics were changing various bits and pieces to the Subaru as we were leaving service. Denis Cronin rounds off the top half dozen, West Cork man Denis seemingly a wee bit down in the dumps when he came into Millstreet service, Denis saying that the engine seemed to be running a bit hot and he had turned down the turbo boost/lag just to make sure everything was OK.

Eamonn Boland in 7th place is setting very competitive times now having lost so much time early on Eamonn has battled back from 30th when his Focus WRC gearbox/hydraulics sprang a leak. Aaron MacHale in 8th has made a few more adjustments both to the car and to the intercom system between himself and co driver Craig, and he reckoned that stage 8 was one of his best yet.

Seamus Leonard is still setting the Group N pace despite having been off the road briefly in stage 6 and knocking the rear bumper off his Lancer. Nigel Hicklin rounds off the top 10 and Alan Ring is 11th and 2nd gpN, reporting a trouble free run in hisSubaru. Kevin Kelleher has improved over the afternoon stages as he switches on to the Foley Lancer and having Martin Brady read the notes. This is the first time Kevin has ever had a co driver other than his brother. James Foley and Roy White are just a couple of seconds per stage down on Kelleher, James saying that he is absolutely bushed after a poor night’s sleep in a noisy holiday cottage!! Roy White feels that he is going well but the times just aren’t showing as well as they did on the Circuit of Ireland where he won group N.

In the Historic section after the first couple of stages Don Moynihan was leading from Joe Connelly with John Farrell 3rd all in post historic Mk1 Escorts. Ray Cunningham in the full historic Mini Cooper led his class and was 6th o/a. Sean Tracey was 7th in his BMW, Frank Cunningham 8th and Adrian Kermode 9th. In the Modified section Phil Collins had over a minute of a lead on Mark Courtney in his Celica with Wesley Patterson 3rd and Tom Holton 4th. Johnny O’Sullivan is in 7th in his Escort WRC, still trying to pull back time following this morning’s broken drive shaft.

News from Argentina is that Gareth MacHale is still in the top 10 and about to tackle 4 new stages that no one has done before. Gareth is finding all the stages difficult and very rough. Intense humidity and fog not making the job easy. Matthew Wilson is 8th. Gareth and Paul 10th. At the front of the rally Loeb still leads from Solberg with Galli 3rd. Nasser Al-Attiyah & Chris Patterson continue to lead the Production WRC in their Subaru.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net (with thanks to Barry Meeke of stagetimes.com and Alan Binley & Noel Clark)