RALLY NEWS NO.4                          Service/Athenry/Saturday 1.45

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 4 BALLYBUCK

1st (5) Tim McNulty/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 18.56.1
2nd (6) Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 19.22.1
3rd (4) Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Focus WRC) 19.35.0
4th (7) Aaron MacHale/Killian Duffy (Focus WRC) 19.36.9
5th (16) Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Lancer N) 19.47.8
6th (15) Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 19.59.4
7th (12) PJ McDermott/Sean Harris (Impreza WRC) 20.08.3
8th (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 20.16.6
9th (3) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 20.00.3
10th (23) Kevin & Martin Kelleher (Lancer N) 20.05.3

The above times are unofficial and include the times for stage 1 which reportedly may not stand.  That fourth stage, Ballybuck, got under way approximately 50m late and was then stopped after a handful of cars when Stephen Murphy crashed his new Impreza into a collapsed dry stone wall.  More of that later.  Tim McNulty was fastest in the stage and indeed went so well that he may have beaten the “bogey” time. 

Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly was slow through the stage, Eugene reported that his Subaru had cooled down so much with all the delays that it had gone completely cold and stalled when the started the stage and then wouldn’t warm up.  Mark Higgins had a really good run through the stage and seemed well pleased at the end, but he was still a handful of seconds down on Tim McNulty. Young Norwegian driver Andreas Mikkelsen also reported a good run but Andreas does not seem quite his usual bouncy self, and is a bit tight lipped today.  Aaron MacHale felt that he took no chances and that his Focus was spot on.

Rally leader Tim McNulty who is running Pirelli tyres on his Pierse backed Subaru said. “We had a really good run, everything is working very well”. 

More on that Stephen Murphy accident – there are mixed reports but it would appear that the wall was partly collapsed into the road and there were rocks all over the place.  Whatever the true sequence the front left hand corner of Murphy’s Subaru is damaged and it looks as if his rally may be over for today. The drivers behind will almost certainly be given a nominal time for the stage which won’t do the likes of Colm Murphy’s place on the leaderboard any favours.

Just outside the leaderboard is Kevin Barrett on 20.18.1. Garry Jennings on 20.40.4. Seamus Leonard is on 31.23.2 following that broken throttle linkage on the first stage.  JJ Fleming has a bit of overheating on his Focus but still going strong and his total is 20.39.1.  John McGlaughlin is on 29.39.5.  Roy White is still going well in his MG S2000 and is on 20.31.2.  Jonny Greer, still learning the ropes in his GpN Lancer is on 20.32.8.  Owen Murphy is about 2m down on the front GpN runners after damaged the steering of his Lancer.

Tom Gormally of Global Group has had a bit of intercom problems with his Civic but is back on course. Andrew Bushe’s Saxo has been reported to be on a tow rope and out of the rally.  News starting to come in is that stage 5 is up and running and stage 6, Francis Gap, looks OK to run.  The snow and ice has largely disappeared and there is just some running water with white stuff at the sides!  Hopefully the lateness that has built up will be reduced to about 35m by stage 6 and then service

More later:BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON (with thanks to Michael Patterson): www.rallynews.net 

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