Rally - MacCrone leads

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