Boyles pay the penalty in Galway
A three-minute road penalty imposed on Tarmac champions Declan Boyle/Brian Boyle (Subaru) proved crucial to the outcome.
Kelly finished 39.2 seconds in front of the Mini WRC of Eugene Donnelly with Sam Moffett in a Ford Fiesta WRC just seven tenths of a second further behind in third.
On Saturday’s opening stage Boyle posted the best time to lead Kelly by 6.6 seconds with Sam Moffett 3.4 seconds further behind and 1.6 seconds ahead of Jennings. Kelly punched in the best time on S.S. 2 albeit a second quicker than Boyle as Garry Jennings (Subaru) moved into third. Boyle then extended his lead to 8.9 seconds on the third stage however, he had trouble at the start of S.S. 4 when the car wouldn’t start. It eventually fired into action but he completed the stage well out of sequence. He beat the bogey time for the stage and also on the penultimate stage and led Kelly by 10.2 seconds.
Meanwhile, Jennings had increased his pace but almost within sight of the finish of S.S. 5, he clipped a rock that burst a wheel and he retired on the spot.
Both Boyle and Kelly beat the bogey time on the day’s final stage. A few hours later, the organisers imposed a five-minute penalty on Boyle for the incident on S.S. 4. That dropped him to 14th, later again, the penalty was reduced to three minutes and the Donegal man moved to fifth. The revised leaderboard gave Kelly an overnight advantage of 38.2 seconds over Donnelly, who made some adjustments to the Mini that made for a better performance. Sam Moffett discarded the controlled tyres and reckoned his Fiesta handled much better, he was third overnight – 13 seconds ahead of younger brother Josh, who continued to acclimatise to the ex-Craig Breen Fiesta.
Galwegian Dean Raftery (Mini WRC) was sixth overnight, on the opening stage the car slipped into safe mode, his times for the remaining stages were favourable when compared to those of Donnelly.
Yesterday, in icy conditions Kelly extended his lead as Sam Moffett and Donnelly battled for second. Moffett held an early edge as the day’s second stage was cancelled due to fog. As Kelly maintained his lead Donnelly slotted into second as Moffett had a major moment on S.S. 9. Nevertheless, he regained second and looked set to take the spot until Donnelly set the best time on the final stage to take the runner-up spot by seven tenths of a second.
Despite a puncture earlier in the day Josh Moffett managed to fend off Boyle, who made up ground but had to be content with fifth – 3.9 seconds behind the young Monaghan driver. Galwegian Dean Rafferty was sixth.
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