 |
||||||
| RALLY NEWS NO.2 End of stage 2/Thursday 8.45 UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 2 Ballanank Andreas Mikkelsen led this Rally Isle of Man at the end of the opening test, the short Castletown stage (it is being run in reverse direction this year and has been renamed Balley Cashtal but everyone is still calling it Castletown!). Once out into the countryside it was last year’s winner Eugene Donnelly who exerted his authority, his Reid Motorsport Subaru looking stunningly fast down into the finish of the stage, smoke trickling from the rear disc brakes evidence that Eugene was pushing pretty hard. Surprisingly the Tarmac Champion’s comment was almost contradictory. He said “I would say that was poor enough, with being first car on the road there is a lot of dust, it is very slippery and hard to find the braking distances”. The clock however told its own story, Eugene was fastest on 8.23.0 for the 10.16 mile stage. Andreas Mikkelsen was 8.29.4 and the next quickest was Eamonn Boland on 8.41.9. Eamonn hasn’t done a rally for a while so was expected to be a little bit rusty, but at the same time the Wexford man said at stage finish that he had no problem. The young Norwegian Mikkelsen also hasn’t done a rally for a week or two and he said “I’m driving myself in, getting the confidence up”. Paul Bird reported no problems but his time was maybe a shade disappointing, 13s down on Boland. Mark Higgins was the first of the British Championship drivers through the stage and he was sweating hard at stage finish but still over 3s down on Guy Wilks. Mark said “I was going hard, the car is bouncing around on the bumps, feels too stiff.” Guy Wilks commented that his Lancer had a little bit of under steer and that he would probably have to live with it until the major service tomorrow morning. Guy’s team mate Gwyndaf Evans commented. “That wasn’t too bad, obviously you always have to compromise on the set up, but it was OK. It was a fast stage, I know that much!” Gwyndaf was slightly quicker than Mark Higgins but still a few seconds down on his team mate Wilks. Further comments from the end of that 2nd stage included: David Higgins said he Toyota felt a bit soft, David also disappointed to drop quite a few seconds on the opening stage when the car stalled. PJ McDermott lost time when he half spun his Subaru when he got the braking wrong going into a chicane, but still said. “That was quick, I enjoyed it!” Seamus Devine said he had a good enough run, Seamus down in 15th place. Swedish driver Oscar Svedlund was 14th after stage 2, Oscar said “The car is braking too much to the rear I am driving very easy”. Paddy White was fairly well down in the times, the Navan man saying that something had come loose at the front of the car, possibly a track control arm. Paddy thought at one point this afternoon that he wouldn’t be doing the rally. At scrutiny someone pulled out the activator pin on the fire extinguishers which meant of course they went off and emptied themselves and there were no refills available here. Paddy phoned Kenny McKinstry who got in touch with Dickie Curran who came shooting across the Irish sea in his big speed boat and delivered the parts in the nick of time! Conrad Rautenbach said his C2 Citroen seemed very bumpy and he was finding it difficult to get the set up right. He was still 11th o/a, just behind Darren Gass. James Cullen said his Lancer felt terrible, there was maybe something wrong with the differentials. Kevin O’Donoghue, 2nd in the GpN points in the Tarmac C/ship, was having a problem before the rally with dirty fuel. There was no sign of the Killarney man’s Lancer at the end of stage 2 while we were there which meant he was at least 10 cars out of sequence. Paul Curphey had a good run through stage 2 and was 12th o/a, just ahead of Wyn Humphreys. |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
||||||
| Associated
Partners Links |
||||||
| © 2007www.rallynews.net (Patterson Agencies). All rights reserved. Unauthorised duplication is a violation of applicable laws.
Contact Us : RallyNews Archive : Links : 2007 Calendar : Irish Notes : Patterson Pacenotes |
||||||
