Mourne Rally - (Sat) 12 Jun 04

Posted: June 15, 2004 11:28 AM

Lunch's Subaru S9 world rally car set fastest times on six of the nine stages on the day His only problem being a small brake fire at the end of stage 2 which was quickly extinguished with half a litre of Ballygowan's finest! Welsh visitor Melvyn Evans would have finished just 8 seconds behind the flying lynch in his Subaru S7 WRC but he was penalised 1 minute 30 seconds for hitting chicanes on the Cooley Mountain stage which had been placed there in an effort to stop the cars beating the bogey time for the stage, This dropped the unfortunate Evans to 3rd Overall.

David Armstrong also fell foul of the Cooley Mountain chicanes and he received a 30 second penalty which actually moved him up from 3rd to 2nd overall.

Mahgerafelt crew Kieran Shaw and co driver Crawford Henderson enjoyed a clean run in their Subaru and finally finished 4th just 13 seconds down on Melvyn Evans.

Omagh Driver James Gillen had been fighting for a place in the top 5 ,but he lost control of his Subaru on the final run over Cooley mountain and crashed out of the rally.

Maurice Gass was using the rally as a shakedown for this weekend's Donegal Rally, Maurice was penalised 1minute for a jump start at the start of stage 2 but fought back to bring his Subaru s8 home in 5th place just ahead of Dennis Biggerstaff who was debuting his ex Eugene Donnelly Subaru.

Michael Curran and Neil McCance battled all day for group n honours, Curran eventually claiming victory by just eight seconds

 1 Kevin Lynch/Francis Regan Subaru Impreza WRC 47.00
 2 David Armstrong/Bob Kelly Subaru Impreza WRC 48.20
 3 Melvin Evans/Llinos Jones-Edwards Subaru Impreza WRC 48.38
 4 Kieran Shaw/Crawford Henderson Subaru Impreza WRC 48.51
 5 Maurice Gass/James McKee Subaru Impreza WRC 49.02
 6 Dennis Biggerstaff/Derek BranniganSubaru Impreza WRC 49.30
 7 Glen Allen/Damian Connelly Ford Escort WRC 49.35
 8 George Robinson/Tommy Speers Ford Escort WRC 49.47
 9 Mike Curran/Fabian McShane Mitsubishi Evo 6 50.08
10 Neil McCance/Brian Crawford Mitsubishi Evo 5 50.16

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• Newry and District Motor Club
• 2004 Border Rally Championship