SS4: Greer Leads, Henry Hits Bale, Moffett on 3 Cylinders

By NI Rally Championship
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Updated: 7 August 2021

SS4: With two stages remaining, Jonny Greer and Kirsty Riddick now lead the Eakin Bros Brian James Trailers Dogleap Rally by 10 seconds from a troubled Desi and Mark Henry.

Stage four was dry for all of the leading crews but the Henry pairing (pictured) finished the test with steam billowing from their engine bay. They hit a bale during the test and were in a panic to get back to their service crew to assess the damage. They were still second fastest so time loss was minimal. Hopefully, the service crew can fix the car and get them back out for the final two stages.

Meanwhile, third placed Aaron McLaughlin and Darren Curran lost time with a big spin during the test.

“We had a 360 degree spin going down into the bus stop chicane,” McLaughlin explained with a shake of his head. “Hopefully, we can hold on to our position.”

Despite the incident, he still set fourth fastest time. Fourth placed Stephen Wright and Liam Moynihan took almost four seconds out of McLaughlin but there is still 7.8 seconds between the two crews.

Jason Mitchell and Peter Ward were back on song through stage four and climbed two places to hold fifth overall. While sixth placed Josh Moffett’s woes continued as his Fiesta lapsed onto three cylinders, Mitchell took advantage and had “no complaints” at the stage finish.

In seventh, Derek McGarrity is continuing to haemorrhage time in his misfiring Fiesta WRC while Derek and Mark McGeehan in eighth commented on some of the slippery sections of stage.

Both Sean Devine and Michael McGarrity have had their fair share of dramas today but they both reported clean runs through the fourth test – at last! As reported earlier, Peter Bennett lost his front bumper but it was a fairly simple incident.

“Someone had pulled a cone out onto the track,” Bennett explained.” We had nowhere to go but over the top of it and lost the bumper in the process.”

In the two-wheel-drive category, the smiling Barry Morris and Dylan Doonan continue to lead in their Darrian. They look to be on course for another category win but the battle for second is still up for grabs.

Gareth Irwin and Justin McCauley had been holding the position but they dropped a few places on the stage – perhaps caught out by the rain that affected the latter half of the field. Instead, John Bradley and Crawford Henderson are in second, with Irwin third ahead of John and David Bonner.

Latest results are available from rallyscore.net. We’ll have more news after stage five…

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