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| Ulster Rally 2017 |
| RALLY NEWS No.3 - Ebrinton Service - Friday @ 19:48:05 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.3 Ebrington Service Friday
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 4 – Holly Hill II
1st (5) Keith Cronin/Mikie Galvin (Fiesta R5) 35.54.6
2nd (4) Osian Pryce/Dale Furness (Fiesta R5) 36.02.3
3rd (1) Fredrik Ahlin/Torstein Eriksen (Fabia R5) 36.05.3
4th (3) Sam Moffett/Karl Atkinson (Fiesta R5) 36.49.6
5th (8) Jonny Greer/Kirsty Riddick (Citroen DS3R5) 36.57.9
6th (9) Desi Henry/Liam Moynihan (Fabia R5) 37.10.4
7th (7) Marty McCormack/David Moynihan (Fabia R5) 37.16.0
8th (11) Joe McGonigle/Ciaran Geaney (Fabia R5) 38.09.9
9th (15) Alex Laffey/Patrick Walsh (Fiesta R5) 38.26.2
10th (10) Stephen Wright/Arthur Kierans (Fiesta R5) 38.33.7
Loads of standing water in Stage four Holly Hill again made life difficult for the drivers and Osian Pryce said a scorching time, by far the fastest overall. The Welshman finished the stage with a large grin on his face and said he enjoyed it immensely pushing hard and the time included a 360 degree spin at the triangle junction. The Norwegian driver Fredrik Alhin, in his usual quiet manner remarked that the stage was tricky. Keith Cronin said it was his own fault that he lost valuable seconds when his Fiesta overshot a junction and stalled. Sam Moffett admitted to making a push in the stage but his effort was thwarted when his Fiesta overshot a junction and stalled. Desi Henry had a good run through the stage, a quick time but after the stage stop line he had the bonnet of his Skoda up to have a look at the engine, saying that it did not seem quite right. As well as that Desi said that he has no confidence as he does not have suitable tyres for these conditions. Marty McCormack seemed reasonably happy but he was seven seconds slower than Desi Henry. Joe McGonigle reports that his tyres were working well on his car and he had plenty of confidence, enjoying it. Not so happy was Matt Edwards, his Fiesta R5 again suffering from problems with the engine – his engineers had changed the ECU, the ignition leads and the spark plugs in service but the engine still kept cutting out on the stage. Matt had to reboot the engine’s computer several times to get it going.
Alan Carnmichael in the Mini WRC continues to lead the national section and he said at the stage finish “that was awesome, the car is working so well”. Paul Britton was another to finish the stage with a big smile on his face, the GpN Subaru man saying “that was more like it, my home stage, there was nothing left, we were sideways everywhere. That is why I go rallying!”. Callum Devine had a great run through stage four and really shook his closest R2 rival William Creighton by setting a time 12 seconds faster than the Dunmurry man. Twelve seconds may not sound much but to these R2 drivers it is a lifetime. Marty Gallagher is third in R2, 24 seconds behind Creighton. James Williams who has Dia Roberts co-driving is fourth in the R2s just over a minute behind Donegal man Gallagher. James did lose a few seconds on that stage when his Fiesta overshot a SqL junction.
Listed in the retirements is another top R2 driver young Kyle White, his Peugeot 208 suffering some sort of breakage in the gearbox mounting department. We mentioned on the last RallyNews that event Sponsor John Mullholland got his Skoda stuck in a stage three ditch. The tv cameras where at the junction, and we are not saying John was playing to the camera but he was definitely a bit enthusiastic with the handbrake.
Happily he eventually got going with little damage to the Fabia but he lost over twenty minutes in the episode. We mentioned above that Alan Carnmichael is leading the national category, Camillus Bradley is not far behind and leading class B7, Eugene Meegan is 17th and second in class B7 with Kevin Eves 18th o/a and third in class B7.
Keith McIvor in his historic Escort is now 25 o/a and now leading class 2 with Shawn Rayner 26th o/a and leading class H1.
Brian, Liz, Michael & Zoe Patterson www.rallynews.net *Follow RallyNews on Twitter & Facebook @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
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