Having lost 5s to Gareth MacHale over Molls Gap Eamonn Boland clawed 4s back on the tough Ballaghbeama stage to leave the gap between the leading cars at 7s. Derek McGarrity in 3rd is in a bit of no man’s land as regards the times, over 2 minutes back on MacHale and over a minute in front of Dessie Keenan. This gives former Tarmac Champion Derek little incentive to go for it. Kris Meeke turned in a 6th fastest time through Ballaghbeama so Kris’ progress up the leaderboard is now getting a lot more difficult.
The Group N leaderboard changed somewhat with the news that Colm Murphy crashed out on Ballaghbeama to leave Kevin Kelleher at the front of the category. Alan Ring is 2nd in group N, Thomas Fitzmaurice 3rd. Thomas is 14th o/a in his Lancer, just ahead of John McGlaughlin. Colm Murphy and his co driver Ger Loughrey were thankfully unhurt in the accident which may have been partly due to cold tyres on the back of the Lancer as Colm reckoned his tyres were pretty well shot after Molls Gap and put on the 2 spares for Ballaghbeama. He was the highest placed registered driver in the Evo Challenge so that mantle now transfers to Damien Tourish who is 16th o/a and 5th in GpN. The Galway Rally Evo winner Brendan Cumiskey is down in 19th o/a, just ahead of Stanley Ballantine.
The Fiesta Sporting Trophy contenders joined the fray this morning and after 2 stages (Molls Gap & Ballaghbeama) Elfyn Evans had 0.3 of a second advantage over Alastair Fisher. Meilyr Evans was 3rd a further 7s back.
In the National Rally Phil Collins was leading by 6s after Ballaghbeama from Martin McGee with Fergus O’Meara 3rd. Dave Slattery was 4th and John Hickey 5th. All in Escorts. Willie Power was 6th in his Darrian.
In the Historic Rally Derek Boyd in his Porsche was fastest over Molls Gap this morning but is lying 4th in the standings with Richard Hall leading from Joe Connolly and Tommy Mason was 3rd, all in Escorts.
Looking back to the Saturday stages, we are glad to say that Ray Hilliard’s Lancer was recovered from the sea at low tide last night around 9 o’clock after crashing over the wall on the Kilmacilloge stage. Kieran Marshall in the SPS Civic got his gear linkage sorted out and was making an impression on the top 3 in the class.
Jody Patterson who is co driving for Jeremy Taylor in the rallynews.net backed Lancer took a really sore throat and cough over the last couple of stages yesterday and had trouble getting the notes out, but is well recovered this morning. Jeremy & Jody are now lying 29th o/a. Alan Ring was another struggling yesterday, Alan suffering a trapped nerve in his neck. He got some physio work carried out on his neck after he put the car into parc ferme and seemed to be in fine form as he tucked into the high class fare in Gaby’s restaurant!
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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