Fastest over the Molls Gap stage which earns the huge bonus of the Bertie Fisher Trophy was Tim McNulty/Paul Kiely in their Subaru. This caps a brilliant day for McNulty who leads this Cartell.ie Killarney Rally of the Lakes by 1m46s at the end of Day 1. Late news on the rally included Daragh O’Riordan/Tony McDaid retiring their Subaru out of 2nd place on the Gortnagane stage following an accident. Marty McCormack/Dai Roberts lead the Citroen Racing Trophy overnight and Phil Collins/Stephen McAuley lead the National Rally from the similar Escort of Barry Meade/John Hickey.
When Tim McNulty brought his Subaru into the Killarney parc ferme he said. “Yes we had a good run over the Gap, a serious cut even though the tyres were pretty well shot. We had a puncture in the Gortnagane stage and had to do about 6km on the flat. It is great to win the Fisher Award. It is just a pity Gareth MacHale isn’t still in the rally, we really wanted to race him here”. Denis Cronin and his co driver Helen O’Sullivan were a bit down in the dumps earlier today and felt their times weren’t special and the new engine in their Subaru wasn’t pulling as well as the old one. However they really got going over the final stage of the day, Molls Gap, and were 2nd fastest just a few seconds down on McNulty.
Alastair Fisher would really have liked to have got closer to the fastest time on Molls Gap but it wasn’t to be, and having set fastest time on stage 6, Alastair lost a few seconds on Molls and dropped to 3rd o/a in the classification. Aaron MacHale went well on the last stage although he struggled a bit with his tyre choice during the day. Further stories towards the end of the day included: Kevin O’Donoghue retired his Escort with a blown engine on the way to Molls. Barry Meade’s charge after National leader Phil Collins weakened slightly on the Gortnagane stage when he bent a chassis rail and damaged a radiator hose following a very heavy landing after a big jump. Danny McBride damaged his Lancer’s clutch when he was too vicious off the start line on stage 5 and he had to back off while the clutch cooled which cost him maybe 20s. Thomas Fitzmaurice had a huge moment over the bumps into the bridge on Molls Gap and he lost quite a few seconds. Paul Bird staged a great comeback from outside the leaderboard to finish the day 7th o/a despite his Focus WRC tyres overheating on the final stage. Mark Donnelly crashed his C2R2 out of the rally in stage 3. Joe McGonigle was forced to pull his C2R2 out when he hit a chicane bale in stage 4.
More news in morning: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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