Winds gusting to almost 100mph and horizontal sleet and rain has made the going tough for the drivers on this Safety Direct Galway International Rally. Most of the top crews have made it through and Eamonn Boland’s lead is looking no less solid than it was when he left service after stage 3. Now after stage 6 his closest pursuer is Kevin Lynch but Kevin had his fair share of troubles with a massive spin in stage 6. Boland reported no real problems. Eugene Donnelly had been 2nd but slipped back when his Fabia had a puncture and then a spin on 2 different stages. Eugene also suffered de-mister troubles but so did most of the top drivers. Gareth MacHale dropped time when the wipers broke and his visibility was reduced to zero.
Conrad Rautenbach dropped back a few places in the running order so that he wouldn’t interfere with the battle between the top Tarmac Championship contenders. Then Kevin Lynch passed Rautenbach’s Xsara on stage 6, Kevin spun the Subaru and held up Rautenbach! Aaron MacHale has been slowed by launch control problems with his Focus WRC and the car is also stalling because of it.
Kevin Kelleher stalled his Lancer and lost a few seconds in stage 6. Damian Tourish has some turbo problems with his Lancer. Anthony O’Halloran had a spin in stage 5 and then a further spin at a junction and had to make a 3 point turn, the two incidents costing him probably 50s. Anthony is now 3rd GpN. Sean Flanagan got the problem with his GpN Impreza hand brake button sorted and had a fairly good run through the last few stages.
In the battle between the two Super 1600 cars of Aaron Burkart and Tommy Doyle there is hardly a second between them. Doyle lost a little bit of time when his Clio ran out of brakes just a few corners from the end of stage 6 and slithered on to its side, happily with no damage. Doyle is now 12th o/a in the International, Burkart 13th, 1.3s back. David Quigley/Des Sherlock of All Weather Covers are leading class 2 in their Honda Civic.
In the Modified section Paul Gallagher jammed his Corolla between two banks in stage 6 whereas Wesley Patterson is really going well. Eugene Ferry reported no grip, getting wheel spin everywhere.
Further incidents included: Darren Gass/Martin Brady retired their Subaru. The car clipped a bank in stage 5 and they got a wheel full of mud. They changed the wheel before stage 6 but clunked it against another bank and a couple of corners later the wheel came off. Martin Brady said. “Darren did well to stop the car from going into the river”. Alastair Fisher led the Fiestas after 3 stages, he made a quiet start and then was f30s quicker than his nearest rival through stage 3. Following that stage 3 Alastair was 5th o/a in the National section. His closest Fiesta pursuer was Paul Quinn with Craig Breen 3rd. Paul Gallagher led the Nationals o/a from Wesley Patterson with Tom Flatherty 3rd in his Escort and Martin McGee 4th.
Derek McGarrity & Diarmuid Falvey had all sorts of minor problems with their Subaru over the last 3 stages, the principal of which was completely misted up windows, so much so that they had to release their belts to clean the screen. Derek isn’t feeling very well anyway and they have decided to call it a day.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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