UNOFFICIAL NAT/ L/BOARD AFTER STAGE 6 Hayes Cross
1st (20) Kevin Eves/William Lynch (Corolla) 44.35.0
2nd (11) Brian Brogan/Damien McGettigan (Escort RS) 44.36.6
3rd (12) Gary Kiernan/Ryan Moore (Escort) 44.40.1
4th (14) Adrian Hetherington/Andrew Grennan (Escort) 45.50.4
5th (18) Eugene Meegan/Sarah Whelan (BMW M1) 45.58.3
It is so so close at the front of this West Cork Rally. Donagh Kelly has a small lead of fourteen seconds over Sam Moffett and then there is just thirty seconds splitting the next four cars, all R5s. When Donagh brought his Focus WRC off the Hayes Cross stage he commented ‘it is unbelievably slippy in there’. Donagh was fastest through the stage but Robert Barrable was less than three seconds in arrears. Robert had discovered a burst front shock strut. That has been replaced and his times have improved considerably. Neither Alistair Fisher or Sam Moffett reported any problems while Josh Moffett is still not totally settled. Alistair was just 0.6 of a second slower than Barrable while Sam was over two seconds down. Stephen Wright had a good time through that sixth stage and he is now charging. Joe McGonigle has changed to a different type of tyre on his Fabia R5 and his performance has improved. Aaron MacHale dropped close to one minute when his Cirtoen R5 suffered a puncture. David Guest is still going well in GpN although his Lancer lost third gear in stage six. There is no clattering or banging from the box so David is hoping it is more of a selector problem than anything else. One of David’s GpN rivals is William Mavitty but his Lancer is reportedly crawling through stage four.
In the National category Kevin Eves appeared to have a screamer of a time on stage five to take the lead. Kevin was also fastest in stage six with his Corolla but less than a second from Brian Brogan. Brian is disputing his time for stage five so this situation may change. There is no disputing however the speed that Kevin Eves is screwing out of his Corolla. Damien Tourish was in the hunt with his class 13 Escort but he has unfortunately retired on stage 6 when his car clipped a bank. We have an unconfirmed report that car 72 Eoin Duffin has put his Escort off the road in Stage four. Adrian Hetherington was kicking himself for having stalled his Escort on stage five and losing a few seconds. Eugene Meegan described the Hayes Cross stage as being so slippy that he had trouble keeping his BMW on the road. There is a slight mizzle spreading across the West Cork countryside at the moment and the temperature is dropping.
More news later: Brian & Liz & Michael & Zo? Patterson *Follow RallyNews on Twitter & Facebook @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
