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| Manx International Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.4 - After SS5 - Monday @ 16:45:40 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.4 End of stage 5/Friday 11am
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 5 Little London
1st (4) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N) 26.49.7
2nd (3) Guy Wilks/David Moynihan (Lancer N) 27.35.2
3rd (1) Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Impreza WRC) 28.00.7
4th (5) David Higgins/Ieuan Thomas (Impreza N) 28.02.0
5th (6) Phillip Morrow/Daniel Barritt (Lancer N) 28.55.9
6th (10) James Wozencroft/Chris Ridge (Impreza N) 28.58.0
7th (9) Darren Gass/Neil Shanks (Lancer N) 29.27.7
8th (18) Brian O'Mahony/John Higgins (Clio S1600) 29.39.1
9th (15) John McGlaughlin/Damien Connolly (Lancer N) 29.49.5
10th (17) Guy Woodcock/John Skinner (Escort Maxi) 29.51.6
The lead drivers had a real cat and mouse game over tyre choice before the start this morning. The Tesco 99 British Championship runners are all on Pirelli tyres of course but the big gamble was whether to go for “slick” dry weather tyres or intermediate/wet weather tyres. Part of the game was to keep it secret from the opposition of course and Guy Wilks left his move just a fraction too late and incurred 10s penalty leaving that early service. As it was Mark Higgins chose an intermediate tyre and was fastest over the Little London stage and just a fraction slower than Eamonn Boland through the northerly Jurby East roads. Wilks went for a more dry weather tyre and he is hoping to pull time on the third stage of this loop, Ballajora.
Mark Higgins commented at the end of the Little London test. “We had a good run”. His brother David was also pretty positive and said. “The car feels pretty good this morning”. Phillip Morrow reckoned his Lancer was a wee bit stiff and bouncy but otherwise OK. There was some standing water down below the Brandywell Cottage section of Little London and James Wozencroft reckons he was maybe just a little cautious through the flood. Wozencroft set a decent time, on a par with David Higgins and 2s up on Eamonn Boland. Eamonn was another to take a gamble on cut slick tyres.
Darren Gass told us that he lost his confidence a bit in the stage and it was certainly reflected in his time, over 20s down on his contemporaries. Brian O’Mahony had a good run to maintain his advantage in class R3 with his Clio. While in class R2 Nigel Cannell continues to lead despite some gearbox problems with his Corsa. Adam Gould was the overnight leader of that class but he put his Clio Ragnotti off the road on a slippy 3 left in Little London and has lost several minutes. Stuart Jones is running under the Super Rally rules and although he set an average time for that opening stage, and is running 16th on the road, he is 38th in the classification. Jody Patterson & Jeremy Taylor in the rallynews.net Lancer are also running in Super Rally, but well down the order after their off road excursion in the treacherous conditions last night.
In the race for Citroen C2R2 Cup points Jason Pritchard was the overnight leader from Andrew Hockridge with Marty McCormack 3rd. Marty’s C2R2 once again had electrical problems, the wipers and heater wouldn’t work properly last night and he had to stop in a stage and clean the wind screen. In the Suzuki battle Galway’s Ross Forde had a terrific run through the foggy and wet stage 4 to pull out a decent lead over Mark Gamble. In the Historic Rally Jimmy McRae was the overnight leader from the similar Porsche of Derek Boyd with Ian Corkhill and David Stokes 3rd and 4th in their Escorts. Adrian Kermode 5th.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON |
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