Through the final 2 Saturday stages Eamonn Boland managed to hold on to his lead but he is coming under increasing pressure from Kevin Lynch. Eamonn said. “Difficult conditions, I am being cautious, some problems with the launch control”. Kevin Lynch reported no problems. Eugene Donnelly also had a good run this afternoon. Conrad Rautenbach is using the Pirelli control tyres which will be used on Rally Ireland and he switched to the snow tyre for the last couple of stages and it made a huge difference to his times. Peadar Hurson was inexplicably slow on stage 9, no obvious reason. Aaron MacHale in the tom Hogan Motors backed Focus WRC went into a corner too fast, flicked on the hand brake and slid into a bank, closing the exhaust. Gareth MacHale has had more minor delays with various problems. When the wipers broke earlier it was because a low lying branch in the storm hit the screen. Gareth’s Focus suffered another puncture on that loop Anyway Gareth has lost a wee bit of heart because he’s lying so far back. Interestingly Gareth’s co driver Brian Murphy showed us his time card which would seem to indicate that Gareth was fastest on the opening stage today, but that is not what is showing on the results sheets.
Kevin Kelleher has crashed his Lancer on a square right in stage 8 which means Damian Tourish now leads group N from Sean Flanagan with Anthony O’Halloran 3rd. Tommy Doyle continues to lead his class and is up to 11th o/a in his Clio. Visiting German driver Aaron Burkart has had a couple of small problems with the Swift’s electrics and has dropped nearly 40s to Tommy. They are in difference classes but were still having a great race for 2wd.
James Foley retired his new Lancer Evo X when the clutch slave cylinder sheared off the bulkhead. This was possibly caused by the clutch pedal stop being removed along with the interior trim. Coincidentally with James having his problem Tim Curley’s Lancer blew it’s turbo. In return for James giving Tom a hand to change the turbo Tom gave James the use of his new Evo X to remove the slave cylinder and fit it to the rally car which will allow James to compete on the Sunday Run/Super Rally. Tim McNulty is also considering doing the Super Rally on Sunday but the decision has not been finally made as it is not clear as to what made the turbo go on his Subaru.
Following stage 6 Paul Gallagher still led the National Rally despite spinning his Corolla with Wesley Patterson 2nd, Tom Flatherty 3rd, Martin McGee 4th and Alastair Fisher 5th and leading the Fiestas. Alastair did have a spin in stage 5 but didn’t drop too much time. Craig Breen had come into 2nd in the Fiestas just ahead of Paul Quinn. We believe Martin McGee has since retired his Escort with clutch trouble. In the Historic Rally Ray Cunningham in his Cooper S led despite the car not liking the flooded roads and the engine not revving out. Derek Boyd in his Porsche was 2nd and Tim Lenihan 3rd in his Mk1 Escort. Keith McIvor had to pull in on a stage and fix the throttle on his Porsche 911. After stage 8 David Quigley/Des Sherlock of All Weather Covers were leading class 2 in their Civic. Ross Forde was leading Cl.3 in his Civic.
Today’s Kirkistown Rally had to be abandoned after 5 stages because of the bad weather. Alan Carmichael in his hired McKinstry Subaru was declared the winner from Mark Doyle (Celica) and George Robinson 3rd (Escort WRC). Finally for now could we remind Rally Ireland competitors that the route notes and DVD’s are now ready and can be posted on Monday.
More news in the morning: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net *For SMS results text RALLY ITC to 53030 (Irl) or 60066 (UK): Text STOP to switch off. Cost 30c/25p. Provided by stagetimes.com
