Possibly the first major retirement of this year’s Circuit of Ireland would appear to be Kevin Barrett/Sean Mullally whose Subaru has slid up on top of a ditch in stage 2, McGaffin’s Corner. It is possible that Kevin will get the Triton Showers Impreza back on the road, but his lateness is ticking away here at service. Also in trouble is Letterkenny man Conor Harvey. His Civic crashed on the Dooghary stage and held up Marty McCormack briefly. Again, it is possible that Conor Will get the car going but the odds do not look good.
Rally leader Tim McNulty brought his Subaru in to service and told us. “The roads are very slippy, even the dry bits.” Tim’s co driver Paul Kiely said. “Tim is doing a good job, keeping it nice and neat and tidy”. When Derek McGarrity’s Subaru came into service his co driver James McKee said. “There are 3 nervous things with this car. That is the car itself, the driver and the co-driver”. Derek himself agreed that he has been a bit edgy so far. Daragh O’Riordan in 3rd place still feels that his newly acquired Subaru is on rear wheel drive only but his engineer reckons it is really down to the hard compound front tyres and the slippy roads. Daragh knows very little about the intricacies of a world rally Subaru and is nervous about changing the differential controls in the car.
Alastair Fisher reported no troubles other than the rear of the car feeling slightly loose on that first stage but in real terms Alastair is doing a brilliant job to hold 4th in a group N Lancer. Gareth MacHale in 5th had more problems with his Focus cutting out in stage 2 so the engineers will be having a real good look at the car at service. Craig Breen in 6th place in his S2000 said his car was sliding about a bit at the back, but it could be just down to the conditions and Craig also said “Otherwise steady enough”. Richard Cathcart in 7th had a big overshoot on the first stage and said the second stage was “alright”.
Aaron MacHale dropped further down the order on the 2nd stage. He said his big spin came at a left over crest which should have been flat out, but he had to brake and he still spun. He feels that there must be something broken in the back suspension. Garry Jennings was all pleased to have made his first service area of the year. The story of his year has been about retiring from rallies! John McGlaughlin is very frustrated about the misfire on his new Lancer and he said that. “On every junction, that’s where you need the power between 2 and 4000 revs, and it is just not here. I’m revving the life out of the engine”. Brendan Cumiskey has not done a rally since Cavan last year and he is also having a little trouble bedding in the brakes of his lancer. Robert Barrable leads the Citroen C2R2 charge despite an overshoot on the 2nd stage. Marty McCormack lost 20s behind Conor Harvey’s accident and is 7s behind Barrable. Cross channel visitor Andrew Hockridge is 3rd in the Citroens.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net (with thanks to Michael Patterson)
*For SMS results text RALLY ITC to 53030 (Irl) or RALLY ITC to 60066 (UK): Text STOP to switch off. Cost 30c/25p. Provided by stagetimes.com
