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| Ravens Rock Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.4 - After SS4 - Sunday @ 14:06:58 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.4 End of stage 4 Slievenamon/Sunday
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 4 SLIEVENAMON
1st (4) Keith Cronin/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 32.08
2nd (1) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 32.56
3rd (2) Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 32.58
4th (3) Kevin Barrett/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 33.26
5th (5) Garry Jennings/Damien Connolly (Lancer N) 33.42
6th (17) Daragh O'Riordan/Sean McCarthy (Clio) 34.07
7th (11) Eamonn Dally/Alastair Wylie (Lancer N) 34.29
8th (14) John Somers/John McGrath (Celica) 35.01
9th (19) James Travers/Robert Nolan (Clio) 35.06
10th (26) Thomas Davies/Gwynfor Jones (Escort) 35.09
11th (20) Marty McCormack/Dai Roberts (Citroen C2R2 Max) 35.12
12th (8) Kevin Kelleher/Adrian Deasy (Lancer N) 35.23
(22) Shay Power/Martin Croke (Escort) 35.23
(16) Dave Weston/Aled Davies (Impreza N) 35.23
Following all the nice sunshine over the last few days rain and wet roads greeted the drivers as they tackled Slievenamon for the 2nd time. First on the road Patrick Elliott lost his momentum completely and was half a minute slower than his first run over this morning. Keith Cronin was again fastest with Niall Maguire 2nd fastest 14s behind Cronin and Elliott 21s down on Niall. This leaves Cronin with a very clear overall lead in the rally, 48s. Just 2s separate Elliott and Maguire, which keeps some spice in the battle for National championship points. Mike Quinn led the Modified category starting that 4th stage but he crashed his Escort at a square left corner and was in the stage for over 15m. He eventually got going and the car didn’t seem so badly damaged.
Keith Cronin said at stage finish. “We went really well. A good stage, we maybe lost a couple of seconds catching Kevin Barrett”. Patrick Elliott admitted that he was far too cautious in the stage. Niall Maguire was bouncing at stage finish and in top form, he knew he had had a good run. Niall was running a slick dry weather tyre with just a little cut in it to disperse the water.
Garry Jennings is the best placed of the National championship GpN drivers in 5th o/a and he said. “No point in doing anything stupid”. Daragh O’Riordan was running late on the road over the first few stages but he’s back in order again and he had a good run through stage 4 to come into 6th o/a. James Foley didn’t appear into stage 4. James was lying 8th o/a in his new Lancer Evo X but was reportedly looking for a Mig welder at service. John Somers was a couple of seconds down but told us that he turned the anti lag system off to make his Ce3lica less vicious on the wet surface. Kevin Kelleher got the diff changed on his Lancer and had a reasonable run through stage 4, but nothing startling. Similarly Eamonn Daly seemed to be just that little bit off the boil and the Limerick tyre man said. “Just not getting the flow today”. Lloyd Hutchinson put his Mini off the road on the first run over Slievenamon. The car bounced on the concrete bridge and went up a bank and tore a wheel off. Marty McCormack damaged the exhaust on his Citroen through stage 4 but still had a good time. Andrew Hockridge in a similar C2 Max dropped perhaps 20s when he had a big overshoot in stage 4. Hockridge’s overshoot held up Daragh O’Riordan for a few seconds. Dave Weston seemed to struggle a wee bit through Slievenamon, the Scottish teenager has no experience at all of running on wet Irish roads on intermediate tyres. Thomas Fitzmaurice commented at stage finish. “It’s mad slippy stuff in there and I hit a rear wheel!” Eddie Power reacted to the conditions by saying. “We’ll drive away to just get to the finish”.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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