Gareth MacHale turned in a great time for the final stage of the day to leave the overnight gap between himself and rally leader Eamonn Boland at 20s. Eamonn was well pleased with the performance of his new Subaru throughout the day but felt on that 8th stage that it just didn’t flow. Gareth MacHale admitted that he was pushing hard all day, and although he messed up on a tyre choice early on it was tight stuff throughout the afternoon, a real good battle. Aaron MacHale in 3rd place felt he was a bit asleep through stage 7 and then stalled the car in stage 8 which didn’t help his cause.
Niall McShea in 4th continues to lead group N in the new model Impreza N14. Niall said. “It is improving all the time. I am feeling very comfortable in the car now and with some new tyres on tomorrow we will push even harder”. Liam McCarthy & Kieran Murphy brought their Corolla WRC into service with a large dent in the door. Co driver Kieran told us that they were getting brake fade partly down to a warped brake disc, and just over cooked it into a chicane and slammed into a bale. Damien Tourish had good times through the last couple of stages. He said that his Lancer was back to it’s old self and going really well when they discovered a turbo pipe was a bit loose and they were able to fix that. Once slight difficult was that they were reduced to using second hand brake pads which weren’t great.
Kevin Kelleher was very happy with his run over the last couple of stages, fast but more relaxed as he got to know the territory. Kevin is still on course to take the group N category in the Tarmac C/ship. His main rival John McGlaughlin has dropped a place and is now just outside the top 10. Sean Flanagan/Brian Duggan have managed to squeeze their GpN Impreza into the top 10 with some good times over the latter stages following their clutch change. Guy Woodcock continues to set some good times to lead class 7 in his Escort Maxi. Tommy Doyle has fitted new tyres to his Clio but can’t close the gap on the flying Woodcock and Tommy is still 2nd in that class 7.
In the battle for the Mitsubishi Evo Challenge it is all too close to call and Brendan Cumiskey is lying just outside the leading group and is still in with a chance along with Alan Carmichael and Damien Tourish. Carmichael is 13th o/a and 7th GpN. Austin MacHale brought the new Opel Corsa OPC S2000 into service after stage 8 and said. “It went well, we’ve done a fair bit of changing to the suspension and it is getting better all the time. We were 14s quicker through that stage 8 on the 2nd run and I reckon we are about a second per kilometre outside the group N car times, which is not bad for a brand new car”.
On Rally Yorkshire Guy Wilks has won from Mark Higgins with Keith Cronin 3rd. On the Bushwhacker Rally Connor McCloskey won from Sean Devine with Glenn Allen 3rd. Devine’s Subaru hit a deer on the final stage and he was lucky to retain the runner up spot (oh dear oh dear!). Neil McCance was heading for GpN victory but that has still to be confirmed. On the McRae stages (2wd) Kris Meeke retired his Escort when leading having bent the chassis leg against a tree. Alastair McRae won from local man McKenzie and Marty McCormack was 3rd.
