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RALLY NEWS NO.7 Milford Service/Saturday Noon
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 8 Knockalla
1st (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 1.00.36.5
2nd (1) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen C4 WRC) 1.00.38.4
3rd (11) Kevin Lynch/David Moynihan (Focus WRC) 1.02.14.4
4th (5) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 1.02.22.6
5th (16) Paul Harris/Eugene O'Donnell (Corolla WRC) 1.04.13.9
6th (17) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 1.05.28.0
7th (26) Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh (Lancer N) 1.06.04.6
8th (24) Hugh M Doherty/Michael McBride (Impreza WRC) 1.06.05.3
9th (61) PJ McDermott/Sean Harris (Impreza WRC) 1.06.16.0
10th (28) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Impreza N) 1.06.24.7
11th (22) Kevin Barrett/Barry Goodman (Impreza WRC) 1.06.38.5
(29) Garry Jennings/Damien Connelly (Lancer N) 1.06.38.5
Sebastien Loeb reinforced his fastest time over Fanad Head by being quickest
over the Knockalla stage. Rally leader Mark Higgins on the other hand
struggled once again, this time a rim breaking on the massive jump outside
the church and the tyre then punctured. Loeb looked a lot happier when
he came into service than he did yesterday and his co driver Daniel Elena
agreed that it was going a lot better today. Higgins was pretty despondent
and said that he had been flying up to the point of the broken wheel.
Kevin Lynch in 3rd wasn’t happy either, saying that his Focus didn’t
seem to be turning in, the centre diff seemed to be driving the car on
and the front diff maybe wasn’t working properly. Eugene Donnelly
was 5s up on Lynch over Knockalla so the Tarmac Champion is closing in
on that 3rd place. Eugene said. “The car is fine although there
was a little smoke came in on Knockalla. We have everything to lose here,
I want to keep it going, think of the championship”. When asked
about his sore neck Eugene went on. “It is still sore but funny,
the pain is now travelling across and its more in my right shoulder, Paul
here beside me said to be sure not to send it over to his side of the
car!” Certainly Eugene was looking a lot brighter and fresher than
he did yesterday.
Paul Harris in 5th place reckoned that seeing Stephen Murpjy’s accident,
apart from losing some time stopping to make sure they were OK, knocked
him out of his stride a bit for the Knockalla stage. Paul finished by
saying “Other than that we’re nice and steady, the car’s
not so bad, it doesn’t have the legs of these others”. Hugh
M Doherty also admitted to being a bit upset at the accident, then meeting
the 2 horses didn’t help his confidence and he felt he was braking
too early on Knockalla. He then went on to say “A cup of tea and
a sandwich in service and we’ll be right”. Patrick Elliott
was a lot happier with his Subaru today and said. “The car’s
better, the brakes are working, we’d like to do a bit more work
on the set up but is a lot better”.
Kevin Barrett forgot to turn his differentials on this morning for the
first stage, had a couple of spins, otherwise OK and as can be seen above
is just outside the leaderboard tying with Garry Jennings and just a split
second ahead of Niall Maguire. PJ McDermott has really come up well from
his start number of 61 and even 2 spins on Fanad hasn’t dampened
his enthusiasm, PJ saying “I’ve no experience of this car
in the wet, I’m finding it a bit difficult on the high speed stuff,
but you can’t buy experience, you have to earn it!”
Garry Jennings was very brave in his tyre choice for the first stage,
but it wasn’t far away for Knockalla and Garry said “these
other guys would know Knockalla, I don’t, and I took a gamble to
try and equalise things”. Colm Murphy said “Trying to be careful,
ran wide a few times struggling for grip and we are caught a bit for top
end speed, but OK”. Further stories include – James Cullen
having some gear change mechanism problems. Stuart Darcy went for the
record distance on the big jump at Knockalla. Denis Biggerstaff is having
gear change trouble and has reverted to manual. Mike Curran is very unhappy
with his driving. Seamus Heron has the ALS in his Focus stuck on and the
car will only rev to 3000. Phil Collins has moved into the lead of the
National Rally from Brian Brogan, Seamus O’Connell and Damien Gallagher.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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