Gareth MacHale and his co driver Brian Murphy in their Focus WRC recorded fastest time through all 3 of this afternoon’s loop of stages to clock up a 22s lead on Eamonn Boland/MJ Morrissey in their Impreza going into the overnight halt in Letterkenny. Eugene Donnelly pulled out all the stops through stages 5 and 6 to record 2nd fastest times but he still lies 3rd in the classification. When Gareth MacHale brought his Focus into service he commented: “I feel we were driving OK today but I know that Friday isn’t the quickest day of the Donegal International and I expect the pace will up tomorrow”. When Eamonn Boland was asked about his speed the Wexford man said. “I’d need to be getting the finger out”. Eugene Donnelly said. “The car was 100 per cent this afternoon. Gareth MacHale is going very hard. My tyre choice might have been marginal, not the best for stage 4, the first in the loop, but it was OK through stages 5 and 6”. Tim McNulty is normally banging right in there in the battle for the lead but over the last few stages he seems to have lost ground and he told us. “The car seems to be down on power, there is something wrong with the launch control. I was trying very hard on that last stage and dropped 13s to Gareth”. Sean Devine in 5th place had a few anxious moments at the start of stage 6 when his Subaru gave a hint of clutch problems. He’s getting that checked out here at service. Aaron MacHale in 6th had an overshoot earlier but reckons the change in the suspension has the helped the car.
Garry Jennings in 7th leads Group N but was fairly stunned at his closest pursuer Seamus Leonard’s time through stage 6. Alastair Fisher is 3rd GpN and 10th o/a and he said that he took no chances over the last few stages. “Kept out of trouble”. Glenn Allen has dropped out of the leaderboard, his Corolla in some sort of transmission trouble. Glenn’s total now is 41.55.3 which puts him in 15th o/a. Latest news is that Glenn’s Corolla needed a new main drive shaft which is being replaced. Just outside the top 10: Shaun Gallagher is 11th and admits he needs a kick up the backside to waken him up. Damien Tourish is 12th and said he Lancer is going fine but he forgot to plug his intercom in at the start of 6 and then “went like a lunatic”. Daniel Doherty is 13th and still fighting to regain the time lost with the earlier puncture. Donagh Kelly, seeded at 45, is 14th and Glenn Allen 15th. Danny McBride is 16th and said the brakes on his old Evo 8 don’t seem anything like as good as the new Evo 9 brakes. Pat Kirk is 17th: Trevor Bustard 18th: Gavin Harris 19th and said he went well on the opening stage and then went backwards. Alan Carmichael is 20th and he was slowed on the first stage when his Lancer filled with smoke which then cleared for stage 2. In the National rally early leader Manus Kelly was stopped on stage 6 with no fuel pressure on his Escort but has since arrived into service but well down the list.
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