Eugene Donnelly powered his Subaru through stage 13, Eglish, 1s faster than Marcus Gronholm in his Focus which gives Eugene a leading martin of almost 9s with 3 stages to go. It is certainly hammer and tongs between these 2 with even Gareth MacHale in 3rd place not challenging the leading times. A puncture in stage 13 did not help Gareth’s cause any. Eugene commented here at service. “That stage was very good, but we took no chances, its getting slippy again lilke yesterday. The sunshine is making it worse. We have to be careful under braking and exiting the corners, but we’re very happy with the way its going”. Marcus Gronholm said “Not really a good stage for me, struggling with grip everywhere. We have to try and raise the car, make more lean and make the tyres work. We will raise the ride height and soften the roll bars. It seems that the passage of the cars brings moisture to the surface.” Marcus went on to say as well that he feels he lost a couple of seconds at the start of the stage, the Focus just didn’t want to leave the line.

Gareth MacHale had a good run until he got that rear left puncture, fortunately it was just about 2k from the end of the stage and it didn’t cost too many seconds. Co driver Paul Nagle had to run the 4 minute mile to get into the service control on time – there is a huge traffic jam in Ballinasloe with thousands of spectators enjoying today’s sunshine and some brilliant rallying. Eamonn Boland in 4th place felt that he was a bit sloppy through that stage 13. When Kevin Lynch arrived in he joked. “Have you a “For Sale” sign for this car?!” The NI Champion went on to say. “No no I’m only joking, there’s nothing wrong with the car, its just me not being used to it”. Mark Higgins is gradually speeding up but is still struggling somewhat with the car although he says it is much better than yesterday. Having said that, the Subaru was in a stage 13 ditch for a few seconds. Stephen Murphy tried different tyres for that stage, but said it didn’t seem to work out, the stage was a lot slippier and it felt dangerous in places. Patrick Elliott had a good run and got ahead of Ray Breen in the overall standings.

In Group N James Foley is still trying to hit a nice pace and maintain his lead, without either falling asleep or going too fast. He did say when he came into service “Its like Monte Carlo Rally out there, spectators and helicopters everywhere” Kevin Kelleher was 2nd in group N but he has dropped back, his Lancer having turbo troubles so Kevin O’Donoghue is up to 2nd ahead of Damien Tourish. Trevor Cathers also had turbo problems. Paul Dempsey has retired his group N Impreza because of fuel starvation troubles.
In the Fiesta Sporting Trophy section Letterkenny man Conor Harvey maintained his lead through their 2nd stage. One of the Fiesta drivers Kyle Orr crashed out and along with co driver John Henderson has been taken to hospital for a check up. Early indications are that there no serious injuries.
More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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