RallyNews
No.7 Hotel Kilmore / Sunday 7.30pm
Unofficial Leaderboard After Stage Nine (Final)
1st (1) Aaron MacHale/Killian Duffy (Focus WRC) 1.20.40
2nd (2) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 1.20.41
3rd (3) Michael Barrable/Dermot O’Gorman (Focus WRC) 1.21.26
4th (4) Glenn Allen/Damien Connolly (Corolla WRC) 1.21.59
5th (6) Niall Maguire/Paul McLoughlin (Impreza WRC) 1.22.30
6th (12) Sean Gallagher/Enda Sherry (Impreza S8) 1.23.22
7th (10) kevin Barratt/Barry Goodman (Impreza WRC) 1.23.29
8th (14) Michael Curran/Fabian McShane (Lancer N) 1.24.15
9th (15) Seamus Leonard/John McCafferty (Lancer N) 1.24.30
10th (18) Kevin Kelleher/Martin Kelleher (Lancer N) 1.25.15
11th (17) Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Impreza N) 1.26.05
Aaron MacHale pulled off the stage of the year when he went fastest on
today’s final stage to reclaim a seven second deficit, his time
8 seconds faster than local star Patrick Elliott giving Aaron the win
by just one second. MacHale was heroic and drove the final loop of stages
fully committed to wining this Cavan rally and knocking up his second
national championship win in two weeks, the icing on the cake is that
he also now leads the Dunlop National Rally Championship. Flanked by his
father Austin and WRC regular brother Gareth Aaron and co driver Killian
Duffy told us that they loved the rally, loved the stages and paid tribute
to such a strong drive from fellow competitor Patrick Elliott. Patrick
Elliott drove a fantastic rally in his Elliott construction Impreza but
ultimately had to settle for second after he had a small off in the last
stage “we were about 3 ½ kms from the start into a SqL
and we just dropped her into a ditch, that is how it goes”. Michael
Barrable rounded off the top three with another strong drive in his Focus.
Niall Maguire scored a good result coming home in 5th behind Glenn Allen
despite anti-lag problems with his Impreza.
The GpN battle seems to have turned around over the final stage. Seamus
Leonard has dominated the category all day but a road penalty has been
applied dropping him to second and allowing Michael Curran to take the
GpN win provisionally for now. What is not in doubt is that Seamus Leonard
was in a league of his own today and showed real class building up a substantial
lead. Michael Curran also drove very well and showed real pace when he
bolted on new tyres. Rodney Wilton is another to have a storming drive
today taking the top 2wd honours from Gary McPhillips.
Finally for now many thanks to the people who supported the Rally News
service and people who helped us out in the field today. Well done once
again to Cavan Motor Club and COC Marty Sherlock on another superb Cavan
Stages Rally. A small apology to Enda Sherry as we have been calling him
Claire all day and he and Sean Gallagher had a fine result taking sixth
with a third fastest time on the final stage. Michael Patterson &
Zoe Todd
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