Rally News No.6 End Of Stage Nine Sunday 11.30am

Unofficial Leaderboard After Stage Nine

1^st (5) Tim McNulty/Eugene O’Donnell (Subaru WRC) 1.23.46

2^nd (3) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O’Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.24.31

3^rd (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.24.55

4^th (6) Liam McCarthy/Kieran Murphy (Impreza WRC) 1.27.00

5^th (9) Ollie O’Donovan/David Moynihan (Subaru WRC) 1.27.33

6^th (8) Denis Cronin/Helen Sullivan (Celica) 1.28.17

7^th (10) Tony Davies/Jakes Kelly (Impreza WRC) 1.29.09

8^th (21) James O’Sullivan/Brian Duggan ( Lancer N) 1.30.33

9^th (17) Willie Fannin/Mick Courtney (Impreza N) 1.30.53

10^th (1) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Impreza WRC) 1.31.18

Rally leader Tim McNulty set the pace again over the opening first stage this morning to extend his lead by nine seconds over Derek McGarrity. The rain really does seem to have settled in for the day and McNulty described the stage as "absolutely crazy really slippy, aquaplaning everywhere". Derek McGarrity lost a bunch of seconds when his Impreza WRC switched onto safe mode, Derek telling us at the stage finish "maybe it is the rain but she just went onto three cylinders in safe mode and we flicked all the switches but it was like this for a couple of miles and then suddenly it all came back on again", but more importantly Derek took a further two seconds out of Eugene Donnelly. Eugene had his own problems, he clipped a rock near the start of the stage and backed off for the next couple of miles as he thought he had a puncture and the little knock has also put the steering out of alignment.

Eamonn Boland is running fourth on the road and was fourth quickest just one second down on Donnelly this was despite the Wexford man’s wipers getting stuck in the middle of the windscreen. Johnny O’Sullivan was off the road for over a minute after getting caught out on some standing water. GpN leader James O’Sullivan summed up this mornings conditions perfectly when he quipped "that was like Disney on Ice, without the ice". Some overnight class leaders include the ever impressive Aiden Bourke who leads class 2 and is fifth in GpN. Keith Power leads class 6 in his Puma while Emily O’Mahony leads class 5 in her Puma and is also leading lady driver, just four seconds up on Margo Doyle. Phil Collins is miles out in front in the modified rally, David James is just over five minutes behind Collins. In class 9 Paul Purtill is technically leading as Peter Cummings is classed as third overall in his Darrian while Cyril Warton is well ahead in class 10.

Todd Falvey leads the post historic crews in his 911 while Adrian Kermode is the leading historic in his 911. The Cork 20 is the penultimate counting round of the 023 Tiles Southern 4 championship, at the moment Johnny O’Sullivan is the highest placed competitor from Willie Fannin. More News Later Michael Patterson & Zoë Todd