 |
||||||
|
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 ROUND TABLE The face of this Rally Isle of Man changed dramatically on stage 9, Round Table, when the young Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen crashed his Focus WRC off the road. Andreas had been just 3s behind Eugene Donnelly for the lead, starting the stage. An extra twist to the story is that Donnelly had a lucky escape early in the previous stage when he put his Subaru off the road briefly losing little time but damaging the rear rims and tyres so then had to do stage 9 on the wrong tyres and felt for sure that Mikkelsen would have taken the lead. In Group N/Tesco 99 British Championship terms Guy Wilks was again fastest, this time by 3s from Mark Higgins while Gwyndaf Evans lost approximately 15s with a puncture. Eugene Donnelly explained about his problem “Very early in the stage there was a right over crest with a fast corner before it, the tyres were cold and I was running a hard compound, didn’t give them time to warm up and the whole car just stepped out and slid down the verges. I felt there was nothing solid in the grass so I just let her slide. It saved somebody the trouble of getting the strimmer out! For the rest of the stage there were vibrations from the back but I thought it would be OK and it was. When I examined the rims before the next stage they were full of rubble and one tyre was slightly off the rim, so I fitted the 2 spares which were intermediates and they went off as well. There was one downhill left hander which was soaking wet and for half a mile afterwards I was in every ditch!” Andreas Mikkelsen’s accident happened up on top of the Round Table, a very fast wide road with sweeping bends past the quarry, almost flat out but not quite. Andreas lost it and the car banged on and off the road on both sides, luckily not ending on its roof. There was a fair bit of damage and he had to change a wheel and dropped approximately 7 minutes. When the 18 year old got the car to service he said. “We’re fine and hopefully the car will be fine too. For sure I am disappointed, but that’s rallying”. Eamonn Boland had a good run over stages 8 and 9, a new helmet for co driver Francis Regan curing the intercom problem. Paul Bird also set some good times and his confidence is coming back. Mark Higgins was on the door handles he was trying so hard and like several other people he had a big moment on a downhill right hander with water flowing across the road. Guy Wilks is still having problems with the brake pedal and is having to hook his foot under it to pull it back to try to stop the transmission getting the wrong message from the brake light switch. Gwyndaf Evans’ puncture happened on a left hander covered in mud, the car just diving to the right and clipping something. Swedish driver Oscar Svedlund had a puncture for 10kms a wheel on his Subaru caught a stone on the inside of a corner. Connor McCloskey has lost time with broken drive shafts. Young Toni Kelly is struggling to keep her Honda going because of some fuel/throttle problem. James Cullen seems a lot happier with his car and has moved up the leaderboard a little into 13th. Robert Swann is into 11th and went well over stages 8 and 9. Darren Gass felt he went well through stage 9 but was disappointed it didn’t show in the time, he dropped just over 12s to Conrad Rautenbach. Gass is now 12th o/a in his Citroen C2. Paddy White retired his Focus WRC following the damaged steering problem when he hit a stone in stage 7. In the Historic Rally Richard Tuthill is having a massive battle for Martin McCormack for the lead, McCormack’s Escort losing a lot of oil from the gearbox. Gareth Lloyd, Stephen Smith, Adrian Kermode and Frank Cunningham make up the top 6. More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
||||||
| 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 |
||||||
