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| Rally Isle of Man |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Pre Start - Thursday @ 19:56:41 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Douglas North Quay/Thursday evening
Current British Rally Champion Keith Cronin and his co-driver Barry McNulty in their Pirelli backed GpN Impreza will be first on the road on this Rally Isle of Man. West Cork man Keith is usually a quiet person anyway, and in the lead up to this rally he seems even more so. There’s a lot riding on this tough two-day event. In British Championship terms it is almost make or break time, and with just two more events after this one, the die could be cast as to the outcome of the series. Keith reckons he will know after just two or three corners of the first stage whether he can get his Pirelli Impreza to work well on the unforgiving and tricky Manx asphalt roads.
Mark Higgins was to have been first on the road, but five times previous winner Mark couldn’t get his deal together, so it’s Cronin, with the No.2 on his Subaru, who will be the lead man. Next up will be Gwyndaf Evans, winner of the last two British Championship rounds. Gwyndaf, with the number 3 on his Evo 10, is looking strong for the Dulux Trade British Championship, but really needs a result here to reinforce that. Gwyndaf has Gareth Roberts co-driving for this event. Gareth would more normally be seen guiding Craig Breen in his Fiesta Super 2000, but Craig is a non-starter here. Alastair Fisher, 3rd here last year, starts 3rd on the road in his Lancer.
British series points leader Jonny Greer, with Gordon Noble co-driving for the first time, is 4th on the road. Dave Weston Jnr. is in the first of the Subarus and he is next up, ahead of the highest seeded local driver, Steven Quine. Laxey man Quine finished 4th here last year. He did discover a couple of days ago that his Lancer’s head gasket was leaking, so that has been sorted. Another local crew, Nigel and Michaela Cannell are seeded at 14, and they have the speed as well to make an impression on the leaderboard. Nigel did report an on-going misfire problem with his Lancer on the run up to the rally, so hopefully that will be well sorted before the start of the opening stage out of the TT Grandstand.
The rally is about more than the crews at the front of course. There promises to be a battle royal amongst some of the class contenders. Particularly for class R2 between the pair of Twingos in the hands of Finnish drivers Matti Rantanen and Jarkko Nikara and the top Citroen Racing Trophy contenders such as Robert Barrable, Mark Donnelly and Richard Sykes in their C2R2 Max’s.
The rally is also a round of The Mitsubishi Evo Challenge. Jonny Greer is the current points leader, as well as British Championship leader. The Icelandic driver Daniel Sigurdarson, who has his sister Asta co-driving, lies 2nd in the points. Daniel has little experience of asphalt rallies and has little luck here on the Island anyway. He crashed heavily here on the rally on his last visit and this time had an accident on the recce, which curtailed his pace note making!
Just 31 cars are starting the International section of the rally, but there are so many more parts to the event – the Challenge, the Historics – the fabulous GpB cars – that it promises to be a full weekend’s rallying.
More news to follow: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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