Craig Breen and his co driver Gareth Roberts were fastest through the final stage today in their Fiesta S2000 which could give notice to the 2 cars in front, Tim McNulty & Gareth MacHale, that this rally is far from over. The twisty Sun day stages such as Lough Allua and Fuhiry should suit Craig’s Fiesta down to the ground. When Tim McNulty brought his Subaru Impreza WRC into the service area at Macroom he said. “We’ve been trying to keep it in the middle of the road this afternoon The conditions have been rough”. Gareth MacHale, with his thoughts very much now on the Citroen Tarmac c/ship, brought his Focus WRC to a halt at service and said. “One day down, one to go”. Craig Breen reported a good run through the afternoon stages with no problems and all is looking well for the Sunday leg.
Darren was lying 4th after the Ballydaly stage but had gearbox troubles through the Mushera tests and dropped to 5th. The McKinstry team is now in a race against time to change the box. Alastair Fisher lost a few seconds through stage 9 when his Lancer suffered a puncture. Otherwise all is OK with Alastair. Denis Cronin in 5th said this was one of his toughest rallying days, more down to having flu than the difficult conditions, plus the screen misting up on his Subaru.
Sebastian Ling is 7th o/a and 3rd in GpN. This is only Sebastian’s 2nd really this year so he’s not doing so badly. Owen Murphy in 8th felt over the last few stages that he had really nothing to go for, that the gap to Ling in front is too big to close. Aaron MacHale was 19th after the throttle problem with his Focus so he has done well to come into 9th o/a. Aaron naturally enough lost some of his motivation, having led the rally initially. This was possibly one of the reasons why he didn’t fit new tyres for the last loop, and then the tyres lost their edge through the final stage this afternoon and the car nearly went off the road several times.
Marty McCormack moved into the lead of the Citroen C2R2 category after stage 8. However Barrable got ahead through stages 9 and 10. McCormack’s co driver David Moynihan remarked. “We’re driving on the safe side of everything”. Robert Barrable’s co driver Damien Connolly admitted that they had fallen asleep a little bit on the Mullaghanish stage, but charged over Mushera.
In the National Rally Ed O’Callaghan leads from Washington James, Geoffrey Dolan 3rd and Mervyn Wedlock 4th. Escort man O’Callaghan commented. “Everything is fine and I’m loving it!” Mervyn Wedlock has been having differential problems with his Escort and told us that the mechanics were not able to change the axle but did fix a broken cap on the diff. The reason for Colm Murphy’s retirement was a broken bearing at the top of the gearbox and Colm told us that they will work all night to fix the box to get a chance to tackle the fabulous Sunday stages!
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