UNOFFICIAL NATIONAL L/BOARD AFTER STAGE 6
1st (18) Eugene Meegan/Sarah Whelan (BMW) 53.55.0
2nd (19) Jack Newman/Donal Lennon (Escort) 54.21.0
3rd (20) Ed Murphy/John McCarthy (Escort) 54.53.7
4th (21) John Bonner/Leon Jordan (Escort) 55.46.6
5th (24) Charlie Hickey/Johnny Hickey (Escort) 56.12.7
6th (29) Liam Howlett/Enda Kennedy (Escort) 56.23.3
It is still very close at the top of the leaderboard of this Cartel.ie backed Rally of the Lakes with just seconds separating the top drivers. Through it all Garry Jennings keeps clocking up the fastest times and that is despite ongoing difficulties with the on-board display in the Subaru, meaning that Garry is quite often guessing what gear the car is in. Donagh Kelly moved briefly into 2nd place on the fast sweeping stage 5, getting ahead of Alastair Fisher. However, through stage 6, Rockfield, which is also pretty fast, Alastair turned in a superb time to grab back 2nd. He said that he was surprised how much gravel there was on those stages. Sam Moffett is maintaining a great pace and said that his Fiesta R5 is just about perfect, but still Sam cannot close the gap on the flying Fisher in front. Stephen Wright feels that he is slowly but surely making progress, and there is a bit left. The Garry Jennings’ Subaru has now arrived into service after SS6 and he is hopeful that he has found the cause of the dashboard problem. This could be down to a broken wire to the map light. Garry has his fingers crossed that the problem has been solved.
Alan Ring’s Fiesta has been in the wars again having clipped a chicane in stage 5 but only lost a few seconds. Keith Cronin feels that there is something not quite right with his car today, and it is down on power, just does not feel right. Joe McGonigle, having lost a lot of time earlier, is now struggling to concentrate as he is in a sort of no man’s land as regards the leaderboard. Marty Gallagher continues to chase after Callum Devine for R2 honours but Marty is now 1m45s behind the flying Opel Adam of Devine. David Guest continues to hold the lead of Group N and Paul Barrett is 2nd, Pat Kearney 3rd and Gus Kearney 4th.
In the Historic category Frank Cunningham leads from Phillip Wylie with Richard Hall now 3rd (after SS6). Tom Clark in the ex Russell Brookes Sunbeam Lotus had big problems with the brakes as service and has been running late throughout the morning. Barry McKenna made the trip from USA to contest the rally but went off the road on stage 1 damaging many panels of his Escort and is now running in Rally 2.
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