Wood increases the lead by another second.

Steve Wood is inching ever closer to retaining his Wexford crown as he took another second out of Ian Barrett, but for good measure, our 3rd place man, Stephen McCann, decided to match the rally leader on the short Screen stage, the shortest of the rally. Tyre choice could be the thing that might have most bearing on this loop of stages as the roads were drying as the cars left us here in service but a few mist and light rain clouds passed over the rally area and may have added to the fun on the loop. On why Liam Howlett is down the field a bit, but still hitting good stage times, he suffered a puncture on SS9 before the stage was stopped so his slow time on that stage was caused by this. Had it been a case of getting the puncture after the stoppage, it may just have been a different story. With only 9″ separating McCann and Gary Kiernan, and Kiernan quicker on SS10, there is only a 9″ gap there with five stages to go, so we might just have a battle on our hands here. John Bonner has 28″ to spare over Richard Moore who in turn has a comfortable 41″ space between himself and Joe Connolly in 7th. The next three places make for interesting reading as Kyle McGettigan, John Reddington & Leon Galvin are only seperated by 14″, any skid, spin or puncture will put a different look on this, we await SS11 times with much anticipation.

What we have so far.

Pos Car  Driver/Codriver                   Class Pos Carried   SS10 Road   Total

  1   1  Steve Wood/Keith Moriarty            7      1:12:08   4:25      1:16:33
  2   4  Ian Barrett/Eoin O'Flaherty          7      1:12:48   4:26      1:17:14
  3   5  Stephen McCann/Damien Fleming        5      1:13:15   4:27      1:17:42
  4   3  Gary Kiernan/Ryan Moore             14   1  1:13:26   4:25      1:17:51
  5  12  John Bonner/Jonathan McGrath        14   2  1:15:44   4:37      1:20:21
  6  15  Richard Moore/Brian Halligan        14   3  1:16:10   4:39      1:20:49
  7  19  Joe Connolly/Richard Connolly        5   1  1:16:49   4:41      1:21:30
  8  17  Kyle McGettigan/Dale McGettigan     14   4  1:17:22   4:35      1:21:57
  9 125  John Reddington/Lorcan Moore        14   5  1:17:21   4:46      1:22:07
 10  43  Leon Galvin/Ger Foley               13   1  1:17:18   4:53      1:22:11
 11  27  Gareth Lloyd/David Byrne            13   2  1:18:10   4:48      1:22:58
 12  33  Barry McKenna/Macartan Kierans      13   3  1:18:21   4:50      1:23:11
 13  29  John Hade/Sharon Nolan              14   6  1:18:18   4:55      1:23:13
 14  26  Brian O'Keeffe/Sean Hayde            4   1  1:18:29   4:46      1:23:15
 15  30  Jack Maguire/Seamus O'Grady         13   4  1:18:25   4:50      1:23:15
 16 129  Neil Tohill/Gerard Tohill            4   2  1:18:49   4:45      1:23:34
 17  22  James Bradley/Maria Kehoe           11F  1  1:18:49   4:46      1:23:35
 18  35  Gary Cassidy/Jack McKenna           13   5  1:18:51   4:51      1:23:42
 19  25  Tomas O'Rourke/Tomas Scallan         2   1  1:19:28   4:47      1:24:15
 20  34  Jeremy Straker/Michael Coady        13   6  1:19:47   4:50      1:24:37
 21  31  Aled Davies/Jason Davies            13   7  1:20:38   4:53      1:25:31
 22  42  John Byrne/Brian Grant               2   2  1:21:04   4:50      1:25:54
 23  83  Shay Delaney/Iarla McCarthy         11F  2  1:21:30   4:57      1:26:27
 24  50  Philip McDonald/Shane Corcoran      11F  3  1:21:26   5:03      1:26:29
 25  63  Park Quentin/Geoege Tinsley         12   1  1:21:41   4:56      1:26:37
 26  52  Tommy Kelly/Mark Furlong             9A  1  1:21:53   5:00      1:26:53
 27  53  Chris Sinclair-james/S.Farrell      14   7  1:22:02   5:02      1:27:04
 28  59  Nick Barnett/Martin Brady            4   3  1:22:17   5:02      1:27:19
 29  81  Conor Sherry/Ger Leech              13   8  1:22:37   5:06      1:27:43
 30  64  Robert Leech/Denny Greaney           2   3  1:23:01   4:58      1:27:59
 31  66  Steven Armstrong/Conor Boylan       12   2  1:22:51   5:14      1:28:05
 32  11  Liam Howlett/John McGrath           14   8  1:23:53   4:51      1:28:44
 33  49  JT Warnock/Dessie Wilson            13   9  1:24:31   4:54      1:29:25
 34  28  Adrain Evans/Martin Henry           13  10  1:25:20   4:48      1:30:08
 35  44  Graham Kelly/Dean Kelly             14   9  1:28:24   5:02      1:33:26
 36  40R Andy Nash/Ray Nash                  11F  4  1:33:26   4:46      1:38:12