Rally News No.8 Mallow Service Sunday 2.40pm

Unofficial Leaderboard After Stage Eleven

1^st (5) Tim McNulty/Eugene O’Donnell (Subaru WRC) 1.40.55

2^nd (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Corolla WRC) 1.41.44

3^rd (3) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O’Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.41.52

4^th (6) Liam McCarthy/Kieran Murphy (Impreza WRC 1.45.00

5^th (8) Denis Cronin/Helen Sullivan (Celica) 1.46.31

6^th (10) Tony Davies/Jakes Kelly (Impreza WRC) 1.46.56

7^th (1) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Impreza WRC) 1.48.13

8^th (17) Willie Fannin/Mick Courtney (Impreza N) 1.48.45

= (21) James O’Sullivan/Brian Duggan ( Lancer N) 1.48.45

10^th (24) Paddy White/Aidan Moran (Impreza WRC) 1.50.30

Eamonn Boland was fastest over the shortened Ballinvuskig stage, last years winner 3 seconds faster than Eugene Donnelly. All the leading drivers reported the stage to be incredibly slippy, rally leader Tim McNulty the first driver to suffer an overshoot, Tim dropping eleven seconds to Eugene and fourteen to Boland. But more importantly Derek McGarrity was in his own words "straight down an escape road", dropping ten seconds to Eugene Donnelly allowing his tarmac championship rival an eight second lead. Eugene Donnelly was completely composed in the Kingspan Corolla, the Maghera man just shrugging his shoulders and telling us everything was fine.

Liam McCarthy and event sponsor Kieran Murphy dropped another few seconds with an overshoot while Tony Davies gave himself a bit of a scare with a big overshoot, co-driver Jakes Kelly saying "we will have that one marked down for the next time". Paddy White stalled his Impreza at a junction loosing at least twenty seconds while Johnny O’Sullivan compounded his woes with a time consuming overshoot.

In the modified rally Phil Collins is now on a total of 1.46.58 and he would effectively be seventh overall if we were still running under the old rallying rules. Phil had a lucky escape here in service when the mechanics found that the bolt holding on the camshaft pully had come adrift, but luckily they were able to replace it with another. David James still lies second in the modified rally, his total now 1.54.23 despite a big spin in stage eleven.

In GpN the battle is really going down to the wire with James O’Sullivan and Willie Fannin now tied for eighth overall. Behind them Tadgh Linehan is having a good run in third and battling with local man Gordon Coleman. Also in the picture is young Aiden Bourke in his class 2 Civic but we have no times for him at the moment. More News Later Michael Patterson & Zoë Todd (Happy Birthday to Francis Kenny and we know you should be seventh Phil)