RALLY NEWS No.2 - After Ballybuck - Saturday @ 12:34:58
RALLY NEWS NO.2 Gort Service/Saturday
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 2 BALLYBUCK
(There is no stage 1 today because of the floods)
1st (6) Sam Moffett/James O`Reilly (Fiesta WRC) 5.53.3
2nd (4) Declan & Brian Boyle (Impreza WRC) 5.53.8
3rd (5) Donagh Kelly/Kevin Flanagan (Focus WRC) 5.54.3
4th (1) Garry Jennings/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 5.54.5
5th (2) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Mini WRC) 5.57.6
6th (9) Steve Simpson/Patrick Walsh (Impreza WRC) 6.10.1
7th (12) Colm Murphy/Don Montgomery (Impreza N) 6.14.5
8th (14) Jos Moffett/John Rowan (Lancer N) 6.17.0
UNOFFICIAL NATIONAL L/BOARD AFTER SS2
1st (10) Peadar Hurson/Damien Connolly (Escort WRC) 5.57.4
2nd (16) Declan Gallagher/Ryan Moore (Starlet rwd) 6.01.5
3rd (17) Wesley Patterson/Johnny Baird (Escort) 6.08.2
4th (19) Tom Flaherty/Patrick Curley (Escort) 6.11.4
5th (25) Pat Kelly/Jonathan Kelly (Impreza) 6.16.1
6th (18) Ed O`Callaghan/James McCarville (Escort) 6.21.2
The above times are unofficial and from the first few cars only. Heavy rain and hailstones made the stage exceptionally difficult for the drivers, although amazingly the rain did stop briefly when the first cars were traversing the stage. Sam Moffett surprised even himself by setting fastest time and commented. `We did not push. We are just learning the car`. Sam even had to take the new Fiesta WRC out the road last night to try to find out how the launch control worked. Declan Boyle said. `We were on a full wet tyre and it worked well`. Still on the subject of tyres. Donagh Kelly reported. `Pirelli gave us the perfect tyre for these conditions`. Further comments included. Eugene Donnelly in the Mini WRC said. `It is very slippy out there`. Garry Jennings reported that. `My back is not great`. English visitor Steve Simpson had a minor worry with his Subaru last night on the way to the Ceremonial Start. His mechanics have changed the throttle body on the car and it seems to be OK now.
Fastest in Group N was Colm Murphy and he observed that with the chicanes that have been added into the stage at the last minute, it means that the GpN cars struggle to match the times of the World Rally Cars. Colm joked before the rally that he would maybe fit an outboard motor to his Subaru. Hopefully it will not get that bad. Josh Moffett had a good clean run, just a couple of seconds down on former GpN Champion Murphy. Aaran MacHale had a slow time in the stage, over 1m back on the fastest GpN cars. His recently acquired Lancer seems to be have no power.
In the National Rally Peadar Hurson is the early pace setter. Peadar had all sorts of steering rack problems with his Escort WRC but he has that sorted and he put a brilliant performance over that opening stage. As did Declan Gallagher, almost 7s faster than Wesley Patterson. Brian Brogan was on a time of 6.40.5. The Letterkenny man said he got stuck behind MacHale`s struggling Lancer for a while.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON (with thanks to Michael Patterson) www.rallynews.net *Follow RallyNews on Twitter @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
