Through stages 7 and 8 Juho Hanninen has increased his lead over Andreas Mikkelsen to 9s while Jan Kopecky is now 53s behind. Current IRC Champion Mikkelsen made a slightly wrong tyre choice that maybe cost him a little time. Hanninen is to a certain extent having to clean the roads of the surface dust and fine gravel but both he and Mikkelsen are on maximum attack and it is quite some battle at the front. Jan Kopecky is losing ground slightly but reported his car to be working well. However, these are quite new type of stages to him and also it is only the 4th time for Paul Dresler to co-drive for Jan.
Robert Barrable is still holding position in 5th but is losing some time to Craig Breen. Robert was quite brave ink his tyre choice over the last 3 stages. Craig has perhaps lost a bit of momentum following his car problem last night that caused road penalties, but he has been setting a good pace over the last couple of stages.
Sam Moffett was a couple of seconds quicker than Garry Jennings through stage 8 and the young Monaghan man told us he is still running his Lancer at reduced anti lag setting to save the car. Donagh Kelly said that 8th stage was his best so far but “I’ve driven better rallies. It hasn’t totally clicked so far”. Marty McCormack is still having gear selection problems with his DS3. Some times when Marty is coming into a junction the car won’t take a gear that means he is being very hard on the brakes. Tommy Doyle has managed to get the gear change display mechanism working on his Clio having borrowed a part from Derrick Jobb. Tommy is now settling in after a torrid start to the rally and he was 12th fastest through stage 8.
Stanley Ballantine is in 17th place and told us. “I’m happy as Larry to be here. We lot a bit of time last night when we got caught behind Rory Byrne’s Lancer. The clutch had exploded on his car. Fair play to Rory and his co driver Jeremy Patterson, they pushed their car into a sclap to let us through. We’re having no problems apart from the young fellows in front!”. Alan Carmichael brought his Lancer into service with smoke coming from under the bonnet and a large burn mark visible on top of the bonnet. Alan said. “This is getting a bit boring, the car is so slow. There is a turbo gasket problem or something. One of my lorries would be faster and have more power!” Danny Barry is going to try and change the front differential of his Lancer Evo10. Wicklow man Danny said. “I don’t know how long it will take. We have never done it before but we have to try something, the car is terrible to drive”.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON & MICHAEL ww.rallynews.net Follow Twitter @Pacenotes
