Rally - Rain affects play

With the first 3 of the day’s 9 daylight stages gone, the drivers are booking into Tobermory Service on Leg 2 of the Beatson’s Mull Rally after a really hard work out. For instance, on the second stage of the day, John MacCrone set the fastest time of 3mins 57 secs, but only 1 second behind him were Duffy, Mounsey, MacGillivray, Gallagher and Bogie all sharing the same time. How close is that?

So where was MacKinnon? In the second test of the day, the Subaru spun and got wedged across the wet road bringing the competition to a standstill till it was cleared. No real damage and no injury but MacKinnon’s fightback has surely suffered a major setback.

Even so, MacCrone is continuing to eke out his lead in the wet and slippery conditions, but Duffy is only a spin or a puncture behind him. MacKinnon’s problems have eased the pressure n Gallagher but David Bogie is now seriously quick inthe Mk2, easily the fastest of the 2WD brigade. Speaking of which, Stephen Thomson who was 10^th in his Mk2 at start of play has disappeared off the leaderboard. John Cope picked up a 1 minute time penalty allowing Shaun Sinclair to nip past into 8^th place with Matthew Tarbutt taking up Thomson’s 10^th position.

But how about this, Fergus Barlow is up to 11^th in the Fiesta R2. Rain can sometimes be a great equaliser allowing the tiddlers to play with the bigger fish!

It also looks as though the rain is settling in for the day with few breaks in the cloud.

As for the pic, it shows a patient and thoughtful spectator who is finding it very hard to contain his/her excitement!

Leaderboard after 8 (of 18) stages:

1, J. MacCrone, 55m 20s

2, C. Duffy, 56m 14s

3, L. Gallagher, 58m 37s

4, D Bogie, 59m 14s

5, J. Mounsey, 59m 20s

6, J. MacGillivray, 59m 40s

7, D. McGeehan, 59m 45s

8, S Sinclair, 1h 01m 01s

9, J. Cope, 1h 01m 51s

10, M. Tarbutt, 1h 02m 51s