When the cars left service here at Castletownbere Harbour just seconds separated the top cars and the drivers knew the pressure was really on. We thought there would be fireworks but we didn’t think two of them would crash out of the rally and that is exactly what has happened. Both Gareth MacHale’s Focus and Eugene Donnelly’s Skoda are stuck off the road on that fearsome Cod’s Head stage.
Further dramas were that Eamonn Boland’s Subaru arrived at stage finish with a punctured front tyre and Eamonn dropped almost a minute to Tim McNulty’s time. Amazingly, having led the rally initially and then crashed off the road in stage 4 damaging the front suspension and steering of his Subaru, Tim McNulty has now clawed his way back from 5th place to lead the rally heading into the home stretch. Even with his Impreza WRC in shreds yesterday following the Banard stage Tim said he wouldn’t be giving up, and he hasn’t!
Alan Ring had a very impressive time over the Cod’s Head stage to increase his lead in Group N over Colm Murphy. Alastair Fisher managed to hold on to 3rd in the GpN category despite his Lancer suffering a puncture. Eoin Doyle has now come into the top 10 in his Impreza WRC, Eoin having a trouble free rally so far.
In the National Rally following the Cod’s Head test the positions remain the same at the top with Wesley Patterson leading from Fergus O’Meara, Leonard Downey 3rd and Gary Reidy 4th – all in Mk2 Escorts.
Further news in from the Cod’s Head stage is that Kieran Marshall’s Civic has ground to a halt with a broken gear box. Kieran and his co-driver Mark Horgan were in line for the Best kerry Crew Award so retiring now is a real severe blow for the SPS crew. Kieran is of course the son of Mike & Noreen Marshall who have been at the forefront as driving forces of this Killarney Rally of the Lakes since it’s inception in 1979.
Another crew having some gearbox troubles were Jason & Thomas Costello in their Class 11 Civic in the National Rally. They managed to get the gearbox changed and are still going strong. Co-driver Thomas suffers from MS and indeed the crew is on a fund raising drive here on the rally for MS Ireland.
In the Historic Rally Denis Moynihan in his Mk1 Escort continues to lead from Keith McIvor in his Porsche with Ray Hilliard 3rd in his Mk1. Niall O’Connell in the Mini Cooper S and leads the C1 division. Derek Boyd and his daughter Roisin were right in contention in their Porsche but slid slightly wide on one corner yesterday and went down an escape road or lane and Derek has twisted his back some way. They lost a lot of time and indeed may not continue in the rally.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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