RALLY NEWS NO.6 End of stage 6/Saturday 9am

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 6 THE HOLLOW
1st (1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 43.37.6
2nd (4) Peadar Hurson/Damien Connolly (Impreza WRC) 43.46.4
3rd (17) Kris Meeke/Glenn Patterson (Citroen C2) 43.55.9
4th (25) Garry Jennings/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 44.08.0
5th (3) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 44.08.5
6th (13) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 44.32.7
7th (20) Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Lancer N) 44.55.3
8th (14) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N) 45.03.6
9th (15) Rory Galligan/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 45.14.0
10th (30) Phillip Morrow/Chris Patterson (Lancer N) 45.37.2

The opening stage of Day 2 on this Ulster Rally was, like so many years previously, wet, slippy and treacherous. Peadar Hurson was fastest by quite a long way, while Ryan Champion’s Lancer ended up on its roof and Seamus Leonard dropped time with a puncture.

Eugene Donnelly said at stage finish “It was wet enough, I know I was slow I kept thinking of not going off”. Kris Meeke commented “There was a lot of standing water, it was very difficult. With the front wheel drive every time Ii put the brakes on the wheels locked, it was scary but I tried to take no risks”. When Peadar Hurson came to the stage finish and we saw his time, we asked “Were you taking chances?” Peadar just nodded. At least Peadar had the right glasses on this morning, he lost them last night and had to run with his tinted glasses on the darkness stages. Garry Jennings’ Impreza WRC was sporting tufts of grass from the front left light pod, Garry saying “We were up a bank coming out of a corner, the car was nearly over on its roof, we switched the anti lag off, that’s enough of that!” Gareth Jones lost a place on the leaderboard and admitted he was far too cautious. While Eamonn Boland got ahead of the Welshman with a good run but still talked about the standing water.

Ryan Champion was due down the stage after Eamonn but there was an ominous silence as we waited just up from the old Alumac factory, then Rory Galligan arrived. The Oldcastle man was able to tell us that Ryan’s Lancer was on its roof just after a junction about the middle of the stage into a muddy section. Rory was annoyed about Ryan certainly, but he wasn’t happy as well that the marshals had waved him right down when he didn’t feel it was necessary, and then Gwyndaf Evans was right up his exhaust. Welshman Gwyndaf was fastest of the group N runners and takes over the category lead. Gwyndaf said “You’d go well in a speedboat in there”. Mark Higgins was slowed by a vibration in his Impreza. Seamus Leonard struggled through the whole stage with a punctured tyre and was up and down lots of banks, dropping over a minute. Phillip Morrow had a half spin and also lost time when he caught and passed Leonard. Colm Murphy had the turbo and exhaust changed on his Impreza last night and he’s a lot happier this morning. Roy White reported a problem with his Lancer’s centre diff and all the dash lights flashing on and off, lost just over 10s to Morrow and Murphy. Julian Reynolds had a good run and he’s just 3s behind Colm Murphy. Michael Curran also set a decent time but said “I’m not here to do anything special”.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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