The
big story of the night concerns that man Duffy. It looks like he's out,
the Escort parked off the the road in a ditch at the end of a long
straight in Ardtun. It's a tricky wee devil that 2.6 miler, all types of
surface, twisty, fast and technical, and that's just when it's dry.
Whether Calum had a problem before that or not we don't know as yet, but
there are marks on the road which suggest the
car snapped and spun, and he has lodged a report to the organisers that
an alternator fault stopped the car. Whatever,. we'll need to wait till
he extricates the car to find out what went wrong.
That means
John MacCrone is now in the lead. "I'm starting to get the feel of the
car now, or at least I was, till I saw Calum off," said John, "The
suspension is better but it's still twitchy on the fast bits, but we're
getting it sorted. Over-riding concern tonight was that I had to make
sure I didn't make any mistakes. Driving this car is one of those
lifetime opportunities. There was a touch of ice in that last stage too,
just towards the end."
Peter Taylor is up to second place now
in the Focus and he definitely thinks there is ice out there. "I touched
the brakes and it went sideways, instantly," he said.
Eddie
O'Donnell is up to third place and has lost the Escort's rear silencer
box on the last couple of miles on the final Stage 7 of the night. He's
also got issues with his starter and despite changing the starter motor
at service it's still not too keen on firing up at times.
Daniel Harper is fourth and came up with the best description of Ardtun:
"It's a bitty, shitty, scrabbly wee stage." He's still smiling though.
Leaderboard after SS7 (of 19) stages:
1, J MacCrone, 49m 56s
2, P Taylor, 51m 13s
3, E O'Donnell, 52m 27s
4, D Harper, 52m 41s
5, T Pye, 53m 13s
6, T Bardy, 53m 25s
7, L Gallagher, 53m 53s
8, I MacKenzie, 53m 56s
9, A Gardiner, 54m 00s
10, G Willcock, 54m 42s
