O'Connell sets fastest time as Byrnes bashes the Pillbeam.

Website office(Wexford)

John Dier

Saturday 29th March

Paul O'Connel has started the Magnus Technologies hillclimb and sprint championship for 2008 where he left off in 2007, in the lead. having taken one of the wins in last years edition of the Wexford hillclimb weekend, he did the same this year taking the honours with the fastest time today. His main rival today was going to be Northern Ireland champion Frank Byrnes, in the 3.5l Pillbeam. Byrnes actually was running fastest after run 1, but came a cropper near the last bend of the climb on run 2. It will have to be seen if the distinctive sounding Pillbeam will run in the morning or if it is too much of a task to get it running.

Run 2 saw a fantastic dice for fastest time between the Limerick driver, O'Connell, and local man James M Stafford. The run of good form that the Clonmines man has been in since his freak hand injury at the latter end of last season, continued on today in the single crew form of the sport following his top 4 finish in West Cork two weeks ago. The gap between himself and O'Connell after the second run was 1/100th of a second, the with of a piece of paper between the two. Frank Byrnes came a cropper just before the final bend on this run, but was still lying fourth from his first run time. With nearly every car posting faster times as the day went on, the top ten cars from first to second run largely remained with the same names but in different order.

The final run of the three started as evening started to draw in and ran without any incident. It was this run that O'Connell's Delta Warrior put some light, and Simon McKinley, between himself and Stafford. It also put three more local drivers in the top 10 for the day with Peter Dwyer's Reynard Opel Lotus 5th, Graham Scallan in the Escort in 6th and Alan Boggan in the Vauxhall Nova in 8th. Brendan Keane in the Magnum in 4th, Russell Stanworth in another Reynard in 9th and James Doherty's Delta completed the top 10. It remains to be seen if the weather is any kinder to drivers tomorrow, the torrential rain and biting cold wind did no favours to anyone today, especially the open top drivers.

Top 10 Drivers on Saturday

1  Paul O'Connell    Delta Warrior      48.06"
2  Simon McKinley    Ford               49.18"
3  James M Stafford  Darrian T90        49.80"
4  Brendan Keane     Magnum 873         50.61"
5  Peter Dwyer       Reynard Opel Lotus 51.03"
6  Graham Scallan    Ford Escort        51.66"
7  Frank Byrnes      Pillbeam MP45      52.10"
8  Alan Boggan       Vauxhall Nova      52.36"
9  Russell Stanworth Reynard Opel Lotus 52.87"
10 James Doherty     Delta T85          53.14"

Saturday's full times, overall and by class

JD