RALLY NEWS NO.2 Skibbereen Service/Sunday 09.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 1 Coolkellure
1st (2) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 9.47
2nd (4) Denis Cronin/Helen O'Sullivan (Impreza WRC) 9.50
3rd (1) Ray Breen/Andrew Purcell (Focus WRC) 9.52
4th (5) Aaron MacHale/Paul Nagle (Focus WRC) 10.09
(17) Kevin & Martin Kelleher (Lancer N) 10.09
6th (6) Michael Barrable/Dermot O'Gorman (Focus WRC) 10.12
(8) Melvyn Evans/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 10.12
8th (18) James O'Sullivan/Brian Duggan 9Impreza WRC) 10.13
9th (16) Phil Collins/Derek Brannigan (Escort) 10.32
10th (11) Willie Fannin/Mick Courtney (Impreza N) 10.33
11th (10) Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Impreza N) 10.34

Wet miserable conditions faced the top drives as they tackled the first stage of this Fastnet Rally. That first stage Coolkellure was over some pretty mountainous territory, but luckily enough the mist was not too bad towards the stage finish. As can be seen above Patrick Elliott was fastest from Denis Cronin with Ray Breen 3rd fastest. The times are provisional of course, but give a good indication of what to expect throughout the day. None of the top drivers reported any problems. David James did however seem to have a slow time and Keith Cronin was also down on time, his Lancer suffering a puncture.

Kevin and Martin Kelleher had a pretty stunning time in their Group N Lancer and almost caught Phil Collins, even though the Herefordshire man wasn’t exactly hanging about. There was little to choose between Alan Ring and Willie Fannin so the race between these two on the Dunlop National Championship for the Patterson RallyNews Group N title is going to go right down to the wire.

Looking further afield to the sunshine of Australia Hirvonen in his Focus WRC has scored his first WRC win with Petter Solberg in the Subaru 2nd and Manfred Stohl 3rd. Pons was 4th and Gronholm 5th which means that Sebastien Loeb, sitting at home 14000 kms away in Switzerland is once again World Rally Chamnpion. Interestingly, Loeb was being run throughout the year by the Belgian Kronos team and this is the first time that a “private team” has won the world rally championship since Ari Vatanen in the Escort in 1981. In the Production World Rally Championship Latvala survived broken suspension to win from Baldacci with Herridge 3rd despite gearbox trouble. Ligato had engine problems and Teiskonen rolled. Of special interest to us is that Nutaharra finished 9th after turbo problems which means that Nasser Al-Attiyah & Chris Patterson will have a substantial points lead going into the last PWRC round in New Zealand. Nasser & Chris opted out of Australia to contest the Troodos Rally in Cyprus, which they won in their Subaru. This reinforces their Middle East Champions Title for this year.

More news after stage 2.

BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net (with thanks to Christel Deberdt for WRC info and Kenny & Maggie McKinstry for Fastnet info)