The rally got off to a shaky start as Tim McNulty spun the Derek McGeehan Mini WRC, collected a rock that damaged the radiator, and is out of the rally. The following 10 cars were stuck behind the stricken Mini so they will almost certainly receive the time of the slowest car in front, which was Roy White.
An unfortunate aspect to this is that Roy freely admitted at stage finish that he drove poorly and was far too slow. Conditions on that opening Corbally Beg stage were difficult as low cloud, rain and mucky conditions prevailed. There was a lot of standing water and a lot of mud.
Garry Jennings commented at stage finish. `That was a baptism of fire`. Declan Boyle said he was happy enough and did not push too hard.
As we said above approximately 10 cars got blocked behind the McNulty incident. The first competitive car through the stage after the blockage was Desi Henry and he lost a few seconds when he stalled his new Skoda R5. Aaron MacHale reported being a bit cautious. Brendan Cumiskey was surprised that his time was pretty good as he took it fairly easy. Welsh visitor Tomas Davis spun his new R5 in a mucky farmyard and got stuck momentarily. He said afterwards that it was his first time out in the car and he was struggling a little. Wesley Patterson gave himself a real fright when he caught the stranded Fiesta, otherwise he had a good run. Chris Armstrong also caught and passed the struggling Davies.
We are getting reports in that Tommy Doyle has crashed his Ciio – no details as yet.
Pre-start information: Neither Dean Rafferty nor Derek McGarrity could make the start. This meant there were only 5 World Rally cars at the front of the field, now reduced to 4 following McNulty`s demise.
Some more times: McHale 10.31.3: Cumiskey 10.25.7: Davies 11.19.0: Wesley Patterson 10.11.9: Chris Armstrong 10.06.8: Eugene Meegan 10.04.0:
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON & MICHAEL & ZOE PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
