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Sligo Stages Rally 2009 |
RALLY NEWS No.3 - After SS3 - Sunday @ 12:49:55 |
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Rally News No.3 Sligo Service Sunday 12.30pm
Unofficial Leaderboard After Stage 3
1st (1) Patrick Elliot/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 28.31
2nd (3) Kevin Barrrett/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 28.53
3rd (2) Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 28.58
4th (4) Melvyn Evans/Patrick Walsh (Impreza WRC) 29.23
5th (6) Garry Jennings/David Moynihan (Evo) 30.07
6th (15) John Cairns/James Cairns (Impreza) 30.35
7th (7) Kevin Kellaher/Alistair Wylie (Lancer N) 30.37
8th (10) Eamonn Daly/Paddy Robinson (Lancer N) 31.02
9th (17) Dominic McLoughlin/Stephen McLoughlin (205 RWD) 31.13
10th (12) Paul Kiely/Pat McSharry (Lancer N) 31.31
11th (24) John Gallagher/Brendan McElhinney (Lancer N) 31.34
12th (16) Russell Woods/Martin Byrne (Escort) 31.36
Patrick Elliott was fastest on both stages two and three to extend his lead to 24 seconds over Kevin Barrett. Rally leader Elliott told us that he was getting into the grove and really loved the third stage Doonkelly “really fast suited the car, enjoyed that”. Niall Maguire said little about Elliott’s pace but confessed to having a trouble free run over the second and third stages and was joint second fastest with Melvyn Evans on SS3 who were both just one second up on Kevin Barrett. Barrett reported a good run while Melvyn Evans is really getting the hang of his new Impreza “I was sitting too far forward over the wheel, couldn’t get a feel for her, now we have got everything moved back and it feels really good”.
Garry Jennings is pulling away in GpN and the driver is showing no ill effects of having nipped over to the RDS last night to watch the Springsteen concert and getting back in time for the start of the rally. Garry picked a soft tyre which then went off over stages two and three as the roads dried and the temperature warmed up. Eamon Daly had two overshoots on stage three dropping him back down a few seconds while Paul Kiely was third fastest GpN on Stage three and moved up to tenth. Paul reckons that the new JFR Evo 10 is a good car but he does not want to take to many chances as this is the only rally Paul will drive on this year.
John Cairns was a few seconds slower on stage 3 as his Impreza 555 just ran out of steam on the very fast sections “the car is set up for forestry and really doesn’t have the top speed compared to the top GpN boys”. John is running a very solid sixth overall. Trevor Bustard has retired his Lancer and the other crews reckon that his differential failed.
Dominic McLoughlin still leads the 2wd category in his 205 but dropped a few seconds to a now hard charging Russell Woods. Woods still has a misfire but its only toward the end of the stage as the car gets really hot and the crew also intend to change the front wheel bearings in service as they have got noisy. Just off the leaderboard is Pat Kirk on 31.43, Ronan Curley on 31.50 having a great battle with Victor Hunter on 31.54. Anthony Cairns is also going well in his older GpN Subaru on a total of 32.00. More News Later Michael & Zoe Patterson
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