RALLY NEWS NO.2 End of stage 1/Saturday 09.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 1 BALLYBUCK
1st (5) Tim McNulty/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 7.23.0
2nd (16) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Lancer N) 7.31.5
3rd (7) Aaron MacHale/Killian Duffy (Focus WRC) 7.33.5
4th (6) Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 7.34.6
5th (4) Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Focus WRC) 7.43.7
6th (15) Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 7.44.6

There were all sorts of dramas on the first stage of this Safety Direct Galway International Rally. No.1 seed Gareth MacHale got caught out in the icy slippy conditions and put his Focus off the road for several minutes. Mark Higgins’s Subaru suffered a puncture and Stephen Murphy’s new Impreza was slowed with power steering troubles.

The dramas started even before that with the news last night that Derek McGarrity couldn’t start the rally because of a slip up in his IRDS insurance. Local top runner Darragh Raftery was due to start this morning but his Subaru has just passed us on a trailer, reason as yet unknown.

Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly was the first driver to emerge from that opening stage. Eugene said. “It was very dangerous in there, ice patches, you just don’t know where the grip is and reports are that the next stage is even worse”. Eugene also commented that he had run over some debris in the stage and his screen was slightly damaged. Whether that debris came from Gareth MacHale’s Focus we don’t know. Gareth did eventually appear at stage finish and his Focus actually looked pretty good. Any damage there was seemed fairly minor.

Colm Murphy sprang a real surprise by setting 2nd fastest overall in the James Foley Lancer. It not only makes Colm look extremely good for GpN honours but won’t do his Evo Challenge hopes any harm either.

As we said above Mark Higgins sustained a puncture in the stage, finished the test on the flat wheel and changed it on the road section afterwards. Tim McNulty had a brilliant run, as ever Tim being very brave and he said at stage finish that although it was slippy he found it OK.

Aaron MacHale also had a great run, his co driver Killian Duffy said that despite that they were being relatively cautious. Stephen Murphy was trying to fix the power steering of his Subaru after the stage finish and reckoned he had lost at least 2 minutes. JJ Fleming’s Focus was overheating after the stage. Apparently the intercom stopped working and they overshot the stage stop location and had to reverse back which the engine didn’t like at all.

Roy White had a very good run in the new S2000 MG and he was well in with the group N times. Kevin Kelleher also had a good run although he said that in the stage he passed Martin Rowe and then Martin crashed into the back of Kevin’s Lancer at a junction. All sounds very interesting. PJ McDermott and Kevin Barrett had almost identical times for the stages in their respective Impreza WRCs. Niall Maguire had a very good run on his first outing in an Impreza WRC S11.

News coming in is that Gareth MacHale has handed in his time cards as his Focus steering is damaged.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net

© 2008www.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