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WEE MANX TALES NO.3
End of Stage 5/Saturday morning 09.30
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 6 Barroose
1st (2) Roger Duckworth/Mark Broomfield (Impreza WRC) 19.34.7
2nd (8) Jon Ingram/Ian Allsop (Impreza WRC) 19.39.3
3rd (1) Kenny McKinstry/Noel Orr (Impreza WRC) 19.43.8
4th (20) Sebastian Ling/Aled Rees (Lancer N) 20.11.9
5th (19) Phillip Morrow/Daniel Barritt (Lancer N) 20.39.1
6th (7) Steve Perez/Claire Mole (Focus WRC) 20.41.6
7th (10) Phil Collins/Damien Crawford (Escort) 20.42.7
8th (27) Rob Watson/Bruce Craig (Nova) 20.53.4
9th (21) Julian Reynolds/Patrick Walsh (Lancer N) 21.13.8
10th (5) Marcus Dodd/Andrew Bargery (Accent WRC) 21.20.8
Major changes to the overnight leaderboard are that Paul Bird has withdrawn
from the rally due to mechanical problems with his engine. Stage
3 has been removed from the overnight results which has made a few differences
to the leaderboard, including Kenny McKinstry moving from 2nd to 3rd.
Major incidents this morning include McKinstry being fastest on the opening
test, Marcus Dodd having a turbo problem with his Hyundai and Nik Elsmore
has crashed his Lancer, fortunately without injury, but blocking the stage.
It was on the final stage last night that Paul Bird damaged his Subaru
engine when he drove through the ford at Cornaa. Paul is adamant
that he didn’t attack the river too hard, but having said that,
it had been raining hard and there was a lot of water flowing. The car
kept going to the end of the stage and on into service. The mechanics
quickly started to strip the Impreza engine and they reckoned they needed
a part which was up in Cumbria. The part duly arrived at Heysham to come
to the Island in the early hours of this morning but in the meantime the
engineers had discovered damage to the Subaru’s head and there was
no point in continuing. It was a very fine and very brave drive
from Paul Bird to lead the rally, but disappointment was the order of
the day.
The officials of the rally toiled throughout the night to try to sort
out the results which had been upset by problems at the end of stage 3
when some competitors were sliding off the road into a field just at the
flying finish beam. This knocked everything haywire. It looked
as if the times could be resurrected, but it wasn’t to be.
Some competitors are sure to be upset because that 3rd stage was hugely
long and massively difficult in the fog and rain. Anybody who set
a good time deserved it, but it’s gone now.
This morning Kenny McKinstry was fastest through the opening test, by
just half a second from Roger Duckworth. Kenny had a fairly conservative
tyre fitted, the Banbridge man keeping a firm eye on the dark clouds rolling
in over Douglas Bay. Neil McCance had the fastest group N time of
the early runners. Marcus Dodd dropped over a minute in the stage, his
Hyundai suffering turbo problems and he will do well to get the problem
sorted before stage 7.
Further stories from stage 6 this morning included Rob Watson having a
good time now that the power steering is fixed on his Nova, Rob describing
it as “awesome”. Jock Armstrong was slowed at the scene
of Nik Elsmore’s accident, lost a few seconds. Jon Ingram stalled
his Focus on the start line of the stage, felt that there was something
not quite right in the launch control mechanism. Colin McRae was
another held up behind Elsmore’s accident. Colin must have been
on a real charge because he was still 2s faster than Collins, although
Phil felt he had the wrong tyres fitted. Phillip Morrow had a good run
this morning, half a second faster than Sebastian Ling. Phillip appeared
to be leading group N overnight, and the Evo Challenge, but then with
the change in results as can be seen above, Ling now leads GpN.
Looking back to last night there were many hard luck stories of delays
and accidents. Just one of them was from George Mackey/Julian Russell.
They are competing in a Lancer for the first time and in the middle of
the long stage went to switch the spotlights off as they couldn’t
see a thing in the fog. Then the car stopped and it took them several
minutes to discover that they had switched the fuel pumps off as well.
In the Fiesta Sporting Trophy Jonathan Greer was the overnight leader
from Tom Walster with Elfyn Evans 3rd, Alastair Fisher 4th, Liam Regan
5th and Max Utting 6th.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net |
