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| Mourne Stages Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.7 - After SS9 - Saturday @ 17:43:34 |
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RallyNews No.7 Regroup 5.40pm
Unofficial Leaderboard After Stage 9
1st (1) Darren Gass/Sean Mullaly (Impreza WRC) 1.06.30
2nd (2) John McGlaughlin/Crawford Henderson (Lancer N) 1.06.41
3rd (18) Mark Donnelly/Stephen O’Hanlon (Lancer N) 1.07.55
4th (17) Stuart Biggerstaff/Anthony Nestor (Impreza WRC) 1.08.10
5th (9) Drew Stuart/Steven Park (Escort Mk2) 1.08.38
6th (92) Alastair Cochrane/Gary McElhinney (Escort MK2) 1.08.41
7th (12) David Armstrong/John Roland (Escort MK2) 1.08.42
8th (89) Brendan Cumiskey/Ronan O’Kane (Lancer Evo 9) 1.08.45
9th (8) Damien Toner/Paddy McCague (Escort Mk2) 1.08.46
10th (10) Michael Conlon/Aiden Boyle (Escort Mk2) 1.08.56
11th (14) Fintan McGrady/Mark Hannah (Escort Mk2) 1.08.59
12th (24) Brian Armstrong/Matthew McKenna (Escort Mk2) 1.09.01
Darren Gass and co driver Sean Mullaly have scored a superb victory here on the Modern Tyres Mourne Rally, their winning margin of 11 seconds probably doesn’t reflect the dominance today of the young Markethill driver. Two punctures were sustained on stage seven and the lead of the rally was gone, 30 seconds in road penalties were accrued and the rally looked lost with just two stages remaining. Gass as they say in rallying terms “just got the head down” and took 24 seconds on stage eight and a further 20 seconds on stage nine which really demonstrates the speed that Darren can produce. At the Carrickdale Hotel finish Darren was pretty relaxed but it was not hard to see just how pleased he was and he told us “I still don’t know where I got the two punctures but I am over the moon, it is my first proper win – what can I say”. John McGlaughlin was just as pleased to get to the finish in his GpN Lancer, second overall and the GpN win never really looked in doubt today despite all his electronic problems and a stall on the final stage did not help matters especially when John inadvertently switched off the diff when trying to restart the car.
Mark Donnelly put in a storming drive over the final two stages, second fastest overall on the last stage was enough to move him up to third overall and bag him a bundle on NI championship points. Stuart Biggerstaff drove a superbly controlled rally and is another driver to land a pile of Hankook NI championship points and by our reckoning may very well moved into a slender lead after George Robinson retired earlier.
Drew Stuart and co driver Steven Park were the eventual winners of a very tightly fought 2wd battle, they brought their Escort home just three seconds ahead of Alaistair Cochrane with Davy Armstrong taking his new Mk2 to third in the category and finishing just one second behind Cochrane.
Finally for now many thanks to everybody who supported the RallyNews Service today and a very well done to COC Des O’Loan, his deputy Paul Mulholland and secretary Barbara Simms and the rest of the Newry and District Motorclub team on a hugely successful event that was thoroughly enjoyed by all the competitors.
Michael & Zoë Patterson
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