Darragh O’Riordan was fastest through stage 9 to move into the lead of this Orchard Motorsport Cork 20 Rally. Despite spinning his Subaru O’Riordan clocked a time of 9.49.2. Kevin Barrett had an excellent 9.52.7. Brian O’Mahony recorded 9.53.4 and Tim McNulty 9.54.5. McNulty’s Subaru had a little bit of damage under the front bumper. Garry Jennings had led the rally starting that stage but his Lancer was possibly outgunned by the world rally cars over the tough 15.7km stage.
We are getting reports in that despite O’Mahony setting that good time over Mullaghanish his Subaru has stopped on the road section on the way to Mushera. Robert Barrable was 6th o/a having lost time in stage 2 when the lamp pod flew off his Skoda Fabia S2000. Robert has now withdrawn from the rally as the car has to be re-prepared to leave for Rally Scotland on Wednesday.
Following the cancellation of stages 5 & 6 last night, this morning’s first runs over the opening two tests, Mullaghanish and Mushera, were also cancelled because of the fog. Clerk of the Course Colman Hegarty commented, “We have put 10 months work into getting these stages together. We don’t want to cancel any stages, but as organisers we have the responsibility for every one’s safety.” At least we had the Ireland Vs Italy World Cup Rugby match to listen to on the radio, with Ireland winning convincingly. The fog seems to have lifted somewhat and Mullaghanish, as stage 9, has gone ahead as scheduled.
In the Historic Rally Denis & Dan Moynihan in their Mk1 Escort set another sizzling time through SS9 to lead Alan Courtney/Paul Soutar in the Porsche by almost 7m. Thomas O’Brien/Colin O’Brien in their Mini are 11s back from Courtney.
With just a few stages to go on Rally France Alsace, Ogier (Citroen) still leads from Sordo in the Mini. Petter Solberg & his Co. Antrim co-driver Chris Patterson are 3rd in the privateer Citroen. Latvala is 4th and setting fastest times, but his charge suffered a hiccup when he spun his Fiesta WRC. Marty McCormack & David Moynihan have had many problems on the rally but are now going well in the Citroen DS3 and are up into 20th. The Academy section finished last night and Alastair Fisher took victory. Craig Breen had led, but retired his Fiesta when a driveshaft broke in an incident.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
