What a remarkable rally this is turning out to be. We now have our 4th overall leader in as many stages. Eugene Donnelly and his co driver Paddy Toner turned in a stunning time through stage 4, Hamilton’s Folly, to take the lead from Peadar Hurson who wasn’t exactly hanging about either. Donnelly commented. “We knew we had to push hard on that one to make any impression. The car is so good on the bumps and jumps. We were very committed. It feels good to be driving at that pace. Paddy never lifted his head from the notes – he didn’t dare! On the last 4 left I looked in the mirror and saw these big black lines. Fair play to Phillip Moynihan, he picked the tyres for that one”. Peadar Hurson said after the stage. “We had a reasonably good run, nothing scary, but on one big jump something hit hard, maybe the sump guard, but there was a click noise afterwards. We are not here to race Eugene, just get round, learn how good the car is. It’s a great piece of kit compared to the old car”. Derek McGarrity had a steady run to hold on to 3rd place but reading between the lines he was fairly taken aback at Donnelly’s time. Derek was over 13s in arrears of the Skoda. Similarly Tim McNulty and Eamonn Boland didn’t say too much after the stage but certainly they reported no problems.
Gareth MacHale in 6th seemed to be a bit down in the dumps and commented. “It’s sort of blown now. There’s a hydraulic leak and that is why the gear change stopped working and we had to move to manual but now the diffs are not working. It was like a Mk2 Escort wanting to swap ends.” Gareth seemed to think he had lost a lot of time but really he only dropped about 17s in SS3 and 20 odd seconds in 4. So he’s not too far away. Darren Gass said he was driving the car as hard as it would go and was disappointed in his times. Aaron MacHale reported his Focus to be handling well now and his times have improved. Kevin Barrett had intercom problems and co driver Barry Goodman was fiddling about trying to get some communication in the stage.
Sean Flanagan continues to lead group N overall in his hired Impreza, Sean and co driver Brian Duggan, on their first visit to Hamilton’s Folly stage thought it was brilliant. Daragh O’Riordan in 11th has brake boiling problems with his Clio. Mark Donnelly has edged ahead of Craig Breen in their personal Fiesta battle and they are 12th and 13th overall. Alan Carmichael is 14th and best of the Evo Challenge contenders in the International section and that was despite a small spin. Another to suffer a small spin was Rory Byrne in his Modern Tyres Lancer. Rory and co driver Jeremy Patterson 3rd in GpN ahead of Stanley Ballantine. Willie Mavitty is 5th GpN and is going to have new brake discs fitted to his older model Lancer at service.
Melvyn Evans continues to lead the National B category from the similar Subaru of David Mann with Meirion Evans now 3rd in his Escort. Current MSA Asphalt Champion David Kynaston is down in 12th in his Audi following throttle trouble. Washington James has retired his Darrian in stage 3 with mechanical trouble. Shane Buckley is having a great run in his Fiesta and is 5th in the National A just ahead of Liam Regan. Liam lost time with a broken strut in SS2. In the National B section Kenny McKinstry leads with Adrian Hetherington 2nd in his Mk2 Escort and Wesley Patterson has come into 3rd. Denis Biggerstaff is 4th. Emma McKinstry 5th and John McGlaughlin 6th. John is just half a second ahead of Neil McCance in the race for GpN honours. Seamus Leonard had been 2nd o/a but dropped several minutes when an electrical connection came adrift under the bonnet of his Subaru.
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