RALLY NEWS NO.5 Portumna Service/Saturday 2.30
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 5 Pallas

1st (1) Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautiainen (Focus WRC) 42.28.1
2nd (5) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 42.33.7
3rd (4) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 43.46.6
4th (14) Stephen Murphy/MJ Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 43.51.8
5th (3) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 43.52.5
6th (8) Kevin Lynch/Gordon Noble (Focus WRC) 44.01.5
7th (2) Gareth MacHale/Paul Nagle (Focus WRC) 44.07.4
8th (12) Ray Breen/Damien Morrissey (Focus WRC) 44.12.1
9th (16) Michael Barrable/Dermot O'Gorman (Focus WRC) 44.28.7
10th (11) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 44.52.8

Although there is very bright sunshine and high temperatures for February the roads here around Portumna are still desperately slippy and the drivers are really struggling for grip. The latest top driver to hit problems was Seamus Leonard in his Group N Lancer crashing into a wall at the end of a long straight. Group N leader Roy White stopped to make sure he was OK despite having a problem of his own in the shape of a broken drive shaft. Garry Jennings also stopped to make sure that Seamus and co driver Gerry McVeigh were OK.

Out at the front of the rally Marcus Gronholm was fastest through stage 5, with Gareth MacHale 2nd fastest and Eugene Donnelly 3rd best. Gronholm commented here at service in control – “It is difficult to understand why it is so much slippy in this sunshine. I think the sun is pulling some grease or something out of the tarmac. We had one spin and I lost a lot on the following stage when I overshot and had to reverse” Eugene Donnelly said “I’m finding it so slippy. There’s a few things I have to check out on the car”.

Mark Higgins reported. “I’m finding no grip, hanging on for grim life and I clipped a wheel in that last stage”. Gareth MacHale agreed that stage 5 was good for him but he’s not using the launch control now after his earlier problems and lengthy stall. Austin MacHale said of his stage 4 puncture “I felt the car going sideways on the very first corner so I think it was a slow puncture. The brake pipe came off nearly straight away and I’ve had no brakes to the back through stage 5 as well”. Austin had been up as high as 4th but dropped almost 2 mins with the puncture and then his stage 5 time suffered as well so his total now is 45.33.1. George Cullen suffered yet another overshoot, this time in stage 5. Tony Davies reported a front puncture on his Impreza WRC in stage 5. Didn’t lose too much. Gareth Jones dropped another few seconds through 5, Gareth reckoning his Focus set up just isn’t right.

James Foley now leads group N from Garry Jennings. Further gpN stories include – John McGlaughlin having to do stage 5 on one slick and one intermediate tyre following his stage 4 puncture. Kevin & Martin Kelleher reckon they didn’t get out of bed this morning they were so slow to start, but its getting better now. Killarney man Kevin O’Donoghue joked that he could do with studded tyres on his Lancer to combat these slippy roads. Billy Coleman Award winner Owen Murphy said “We’re going very bad, I spun on the first stage out of service then had an overshoot on the next one. I think this new car is too fast for me and its going to take me the whole rally to get used to it”. Trevor Cathers is down the order a little but speeding up and getting closer to the pace of the best in gpN. James Cullen’s earlier delay was down to a broken differential and now his Lancer’s clutch is slipping.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net

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