RALLY NEWS NO.9 Armagh Regroup/Saturday 12.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 10 City Special
1st (1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.18.28.0
2nd (4) Peadar Hurson/Damien Connolly (Impreza WRC) 1.19.03.2
3rd (3) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 1.19.17.0
4th (25) Garry Jennings/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 1.20.19.6
5th (13) Gareth Jones/David Moynihan (Impreza WRC) 1.20.29.4
6th (20) Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Lancer N) 1.20.33.9
7th (14) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N) 1.20.37.4
8th (15) Rory Galligan/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 1.21.43.3
9th (33) Julian Reynolds/Gordon Noble (Impreza N) 1.22.36.5
10th (26) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 1.22.42.1
11th (22) Stuart Jones/Craig Parry (Lancer N) 1.22.46.7
12th (23) Jonny Milner/Nick Beech (Lancer N) 1.23.00.9

Eugene Donnelly was fastest through stage 9, while Peadar Hurson was quickest by a slender half a second from Eugene on the spectator stage. We said on the last Rally News that Kris Meeke had dropped just over a minute in his accident. This has transpired to be over 4 minutes and Kris is now being shown in 15th place. James Wozencroft in his Suzuki is up into 2nd in the Super 1600 category behind Meeke, while Barry Clark has crashed his Fiesta S1600 off the road on stage 7. Eugene Donnelly commented here at regroup. “We pushed hard through that Black Hill stage, on the next one maybe we made 2 small mistakes and we also hit one big puddle and the whole windscreen misted over. We were both looking through a wee gap in the middle.” Peadar Hurson said “We’re not going just as hard”. As he said that he pointed at the damage round the front of the Impreza and continued “We don’t want another one of those, we are braking early for squares but it is still hard to predict at junctions”. Garry Jennings lost a bit of his momentum through the last couple of stages, the young Ballinamallard man admitting that he was on completely the wrong tyres for the conditions and was braking early for every junction.

Kris Meeke’s co driver Glenn Patterson said “We’re not getting grip anywhere, coming out of junctions, into junctions, just no grip”.

In Group N Gwyndaf Evans continues to be the man to beat, but Mark Higgins is hanging in very close and was quite a few seconds faster through stage 9, when Gwyndaf had a bit of an overshoot. Whereas on stage 10 the two were almost equal. Gwyndaf said “I missed my braking point for a slot right, overshot and spun the car round, it seemed to set on the grass for ages spinning the wheels. We also have a bad judder in the brakes, but overall going well”. Mark Higgins told us “The car seems better, there is still a bit of movement in the steering, but its not so bad”. Rory Galligan said “We made a few more mistakes on those 2 stages, its just hard to get a clean run”. In the same vein Seamus Leonard said “I just can’t settle, we’ve had massive overshoots and the car is all over the place”. Julian Reynolds had a slightly slow time through stage 9 but couldn’t think of any particular reason. Young Stuart Jones is knocking on the door of the top 10 but was slightly held back by a broken gearbox mounting on his Lancer through stages 9 and 10, also a half spin. The Welshpool youngster hopes to get the car sorted at service and continue his chase after Colm Murphy and a top 10 place.

Roy White was featuring strongly in group N earlier but has struggled through the last few stages with his ill handling Lancer. The centre differential pump was broken and they couldn’t fix it and the latest news we have is that Tipperary man Roy started into stage 10 but stopped immediately and reversed out, so we can only presume his Ulster Rally is over for this year. Also in trouble on the spectator stage was Emma McKinstry but she got her Impreza WRC going and has made it down here to service where hopefully the clutch trouble will be sorted out. In the World Rally Championship in Japan Sebastien Loeb has back into the lead from Marcus Gronholm with Hiroven 3rd. Gareth MacHale is 10th and has recovered well having tumbled his Focus on the shake down stage and getting a lot of body panel damage. Matthew Wilson is down in 33rd place and must be running under Super Rally rules. Talking of Super Rally rules, here on the Ulster Rally Roman Kresta retired yesterday, put the car into parc ferme, went into parc ferme this morning, started it up and turned it off again, so therefore qualifies as a finisher and will get points in the BRC as a result (or not a result!)….

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