The opening stage today, Killeenadeema, more commonly known as the Black Road, is the longest stage of the rally. The nature of this territory is that the roads are more open than yesterday, really good driving stages. The surfaces are still wet because of light rain showers. Overnight rally leader Garry Jennings is first on the road today. He has such a lead that he can afford to take it slightly easier, but that could be difficult. World Rally cars are designed to be driven flat out and Garry stalled the engine at the first junction in the stage, by being careful! Keith Cronin is 2nd on the road and 2nd in the rally but he had a bit of a moment on that opening Sunday stage when his Citroen collided with the scenery. The front of the DS3 R5 was slightly flattened and there were a few funny noises coming from under the bonnet. Hopefully there is nothing seriously wrong. Interestingly, Sam Moffett was fastest of the R5 drivers through the stage, Sam said that he took it easy at the start but pushed hard from the middle of the stage. Alastair Fisher had a fairly big spin at the first corner, possibly down to cold tyres. His co driver Gordon Noble said. `It was a proper spin, we had to back down the road slightly to get turned`.
Desi Henry said he drove with a little caution, but with only seconds separating the top four R5 crews there is very little in it. Josh Moffett lost at least 10s when he spun his new Fiesta R5. Roy White had no real comment at stage finish, but appeared to have no problems although a few seconds down on the fastest times. Joe McGonigle took a chance on full slick tyres and it paid off as he was 17s faster than Stephen Wright, and moved ahead of him on the leaderboard. David Guest continues to lead group N with William Mavitty 2nd and Gus Kearney 3rd. Gus had a bit of a mishap yesterday when he punctured a tyre and he was being slightly cautious this morning. Brendan Cumiskey is lying 12th o/a and has changed the rear brake pads on his new Fiesta R5 to try to make the braking a bit more consistent. Brendan and Aaron MacHale are having their usual battle and MacHale was almost 2s faster on that stage.
In the National Rally Wesley Patterson was 4s quicker than Eugene Meegan over that first Sunday stage so Wesley moves into the lead of the Nationals. Galway crew Tom Flaherty & Patrick Curley in their Escort are a very solid 3rd but not at the moment threatening the 2 cars in front.
News from the last Saturday stage is that Paul Rowley/Patrick Brides put their Skoda S2000 on top of a small hedge and are running in Rally 2 today.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON & MICHAEL & ZOE PATTERSON www.rallynews.net *Follow RallyNews on Twitter & Facebook @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
