Through the highly technical narrow roads of the Gortnagane stage Tim McNulty was fastest his Subaru covering the 17.17km test in 8m57s. Daragh O’Riordan was 2nd fastest Alastair Fisher 3rd. Tim was fairly ambitious in his tyre choice, despite the black clouds above and wet roads below, but the rally leader shrugged off any difficulty. Alastair Fisher had a very run to move into 3rd place and lead group N. Alastair also shrugged off the slippery conditions. Aaron MacHale felt he was on the wrong tyres and he slipped from 3rd to 5th. Denis Cronin described the conditions as “patchy”. Eamonn Daly was slowed slightly towards stage finish as he had mud in a wheel that was causing a vibration. Paul Bird/Kirsty Riddick made a terrible start to the rally when they dropped over a minute on the first stage with anti lag problems on their Focus WRC. Paul fought back through stages 2 and 3. Unofficially we now have them coming into the top 10 and hopefully this will be confirmed shortly.
Robert Barrable closed the gap slightly on Citroen Racing Trophy leader Marty McCormack through that Gortnagane stage. Barrable’s Citroen C2R2 stopped the clocks on 9.40 while Marty McCormack’s time was 9.46. Kieran Marshall/Derry Mahony whose Honda Civic Type R is running at No.76 passed a car on stage 1 and then went off big time into a bog. The SPS Civic was lifted back on to the road by about 30 spectators and Kieran said he owes them a very big thanks. He was lying 2nd in class 4 at first service. Andrew Bushe has retired his C2 S1600 with mechanical problems after the opening stage.
In the National Rally Phil Collins was again fastest but by only a second over Barry Meade. Collins is leading the National category overall by 8s from Meade with Ed O’Callaghan 3rd but over a minute back. Vincent O’Shea is having windscreen misting problems in his Escort Cosworth and he is 4th o/a just ahead of Kevin O’Donoghue. Joe Connolly and his co driving son John were lying 9th o/a in the Nationals but have crashed their beautiful red Escort out on stage 3.
News just coming in is that McNulty was fastest through SS4 to increase his lead to over a minute. On Rally Canarias Kris Meeke & Paul Nagle have set a series of fastest times today but following their almost 2m time loss last night due to a puncture, he has managed to finish 4th o/a having made up a lot of time.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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