RALLY NEWS NO.6 Service/Saturday
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 7 SHANERA 2
1st (6) Daragh O'Riordan/Tony McDaid (Impreza WRC) 56.31.3
2nd (1) Denis Cronin/Coleman Hurley (Impreza WRC) 58.11.2
3rd (8) Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Lancer N) 59.35.6
4th (23) Thomas Fitzmaurice/Fionn Foley (Lancer N) 59.36.6
5th (12) Jer O'Donovan/Sean Hayde (Impreza N) 1.02.42.0
6th (28) Mark Sheahan/Mark Kane (Citroen C2R2) 1.02.43.5
7th Eoin Doyle/Peter Brennan 8th Joe Shrimpton/Ciaran Geaney 9th Scott McElhinney/Karl Reid 10th Colm McFall/Christopher Crowe
UNOFFICIAL NATIONAL L/BOARD AFTER STAGE 7
1st (10) Fergus O'Meara/Liam Brennan (Escort) 1.00.15.8
2nd (15) Kevin O'Donoghue/Joe O'Leary (Escort) 1.00.28.5
3rd (26) Geoffrey Dolan/Conor Murphy (Sunbeam) 1.03.08.8
4th (16) Charlie Hickey/Johnny Hickey (Escort) 1.03.18.0
5th (27) David Guest/Liam Moynihan (BMW) 1.03.37.5
6th (34) John Riordan/Donal Falvey (Escort) 1.04.03.0
7th Jason McSweeney/Denis O’Mahony 8th Graham Colfer/Alan Dolan 9th Kevin O’Sullivan/Timothy Murphy 10th Eugene Ferry/Derek Heena
Although Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy are shown as 3rd o/a above their Group N Lancer was misfiring through that Shanera stage and Alan had no option but to switch the car off when it went on to 3 cylinders on the following road section back to Caragh Lake. It is a big disappointment for Alan, particularly bearing in mind that on this rally last year his Lancer didn’t even get started because of the turbo fire. However, his co driver Adrian Deasy has sent us a text to say, “It’s not the end of the world, worse things happen at sea!”
There has been a change with the National category leaderboard as well as Barry Meade has been hit with a load of road penalties and has gone from 1st to last. This leaves Fergus O’Meara leading. We wrote earlier about Fergus having a difficult with his Escort’s paddle shift. Since that we have been speaking with Mike Moloney who installs some of the paddle shift systems and he reckons that with a little testing and some expertise from himself it would be easily sorted. Certainly Fergus has got the hammer down over the last few stages and was 9s faster than Kevin O’Donoghue through Shanera and 6s up through Caragh Lake.
At the front of the rally Denis Cronin admitted to falling asleep, figuratively speaking, through stage 6 and Daragh O’Riordan’s Subaru was on Denis’ rear bumper at stage finish. On stage 7 Daragh was 9s faster so the Midleton man is certainly stamping his authority all over this Killarney Rally of the Lakes. Jer O’Donovan seems to have woken up and he has set a couple of good times to move from 6th to 5th to get ahead of Mark Sheahan. Mark continues to lead the Citroen Racing Trophy contenders. Kieran Daly was 2nd in the Citroens but we have no time for him from stage 7 and Joe Shrimpton is now shown as 2nd with Scott McElhinney 3rd. Colm McFall has come into 10th o/a in the International category just ahead of Samantha Thom on her Citroen.
Kieran Marshall/Tommy Hayes are 13th o/a in the SPS Honda Civic, Killarney man Kieran reporting a trouble free run so far. Kevin O’Connor has reportedly got some gearbox troubles following earlier power steering worries on his Citroen. Peter Barrable lost time on Caragh when his C2R2 sustained a puncture.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net *For SMS results text RALLY ITC to 53030 (Irl) or RALLY ITC to 60066 (UK). Cost 30c/25p. Text STOP to switch off. Provided by stagetimes.com
