Donagh Kelly/Conor Foley are setting such a pace at the front that they are edging away from Garry Jennings/David Moynihan. Indeed such was Kelly`s speed in his Focus WRC through stage 4 that he even beat the bogey time. Garry went on to dry weather tyres for stages 3 and 4 and was within a second of Donagh`s time in stage 3, but dropped a bit more in stage 4. Co-driver David Moynihan told us that they had run wide on a hairpin, but still to drop so many seconds was a bit discouraging.
In the battle of the top R5 drivers Keith Cronin made a real push through stages 3 and 4 and moved from a 1s deficit to an almost 11s advantage over Alastair Fisher. Alastair admitted that he possibly went for too soft a compound tyre.
Roy White in 5th place with his Fiesta WRC is improving a wee bit with every stage and he said. `We are taking one little bit at a time, not eat the whole cake all at once`. Daragh O`Riordan has moved up from 8th to 6th and he said. `The car is fine, it is more me getting back into it. There are bits where we are great and bits where we are not`. Kevin Kelleher dropped a few seconds when he caught the struggling Desi Henry Skoda in stage 3. Desi`s car suffered a puncture and he dropped well over 3m changing the wheel. Kelleher`s Subaru is showing a little bit of frontal damage having cut a corner too sharp. We mentioned on the last RallyNews that Jer O`Donovan was stopped between two stages. He managed to get the Subaru going again. We mentioned also that Peter O`Kane`s Lancer had been sidelined in stage 1. It turned out to be nothing more than a damaged cable in the gear linkage, so he is re-joining under R2 and he joked that he will not advertise the car in the classifieds just yet!
In the National Rally Brian Brogan is setting a fabulous pace to lead by 21s from Adrian Hetherington with Alan Ring 3rd. Hetherington`s co driver Gary Nolan told us that they have had a few small problems, one of them being that the foam lining of the petrol tank is breaking up, and going into the fuel system. In stage 4 they also had a great race with an Irish Wolfhound cantering down the side of the road! Nolan said he could not believe the speed of it….
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