RALLY NEWS NO.6                Parc Ferme - Saturday - 6.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 8 (end of Day 1)
1st (3) Eamonn Boland/Damian Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 1.05.23
2nd (1) Derek McGarrity/Dermot O'Gorman (Impreza WRC) 1.05.44
3rd (2) Austin MacHale/Brian Murphy (Impreza WRC) 1.06.01
4th (11) Tim McNulty/Anthony Nestor (Impreza WRC) 1.06.51
5th (7) Donie O'Sullivan/Paul Nagle (Impreza WRC) 1.07.26
6th (8) Melvyn Evans/Marc Jones (Impreza WRC) 1.07.27
7th (6) Liam McCarthy/Kieran Murphy (Corolla WRC) 1.07.29
8th (10) Maurice Gass/Andrew Cullen (Impreza WRC) 1.07.58
9th (15) Tommy Graham/Bob Kelly (Impreza WRC) 1.08.32
10th (17) Seamus Leonard/Paul McLaughlin (Impreza N) 1.08.43
11th (18) Roy White/Greg Shinnors (Lancer N) 1.08.45
        (22) JJ Fleming/Jakes Kelly (Impreza WRC) 1.08.45   
13th (12) Denis Cronin/Helen O'Sullivan (BMW M3) 1.08.47
14th (14) Ray Breen/John Purcell (6R4) 1.09.16
15th (33) Guy Woodcock/David Williams (Esc.Maxi) 1.10.24

The above leaderboard is still provisional - there were some changes to stage 1 times for example when the bogey time was re-applied.  Austin MacHale is showing a 30s road penalty in the computerised results - which is not shown above.

Eamonn Boland commented when he put his lovely white Subaru WRC into parc ferme "So far so good, we had a good day, I think changing the car to right hand drive for Wexford and for here has made a big difference. Getting ready for next year!"  This is the first time that Eamonn has led a round of the Tarmac Championship overnight…..Derek McGarrity in 2nd place still has that small worry about smoke coming into the car. While Austin MacHale reported no major problems for the day.  Tim McNulty has driven the last couple of stages with no water pump to the intercooler, this has reduced the power, the engineers have the pump out of the car and will to overhaul it overnight. Melvyn Evans was slowed over the last few stages by a bad misfire in his Impreza WRC.

In Group N Roy White got the ECU to his gearbox changed, this cured the centre differential problem and he went well over the last couple of stages 7s slower than Leonard in stage 7, Fuhiry, but 8 faster in stage 8, Lough Allua, where Leonard's tyres went off the boil.  Eddy Garry was reasonably well up in gpN but the Waterford Subaru dealer has dropped almost 2 minutes when he broke a front strut in his Impreza, and had to run a standard unit. Aaron MacHale still can't get his car to go as hard as he wants, starting to think more and more the gearing could be out. Eoin Doyle lost a few seconds in stage 8 when he caught Willie Fannin. Paul Dempsey put his Subaru off on the first stage at the end of a long straight, right in front of his father who was spectating.

James O'Sullivan still leads class 11 from David James, O'Sullivan's total 1.11.47,  David James 1.12.29.  Dave Randles got his Nissan to the end of the 8 stages, first day he has completed all the stages for a long time.  Denis Cronin still leads the 2 wheel drive division from John Moynihan.  Denis lost a few seconds today with various problems.

Latest news on the Ford Ireland Focus championship part of the rally - John Foley leads from Oliver Stanley with David Delaney 3rd, Colm Murphy 4th after going off the road.

More news in the morning. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON                   www.rallynews.net