McCarthy leads Quality Hotels West Cork Rally

Throughout today’s eight stages of the first leg of the Quality Hotels West Cork Rally in Clonakilty, local drivers, Liam McCarthy and Denis Cronin have been locked in combat and at the overnight halt, Dunmanway driver, McCarthy is just three tenths of a second ahead of Ballylickey’s Cronin, both in Subaru WRC’s.

Tony Davies, also in a Subaru WRC, made a fine recovery from problems on the opening stages to hold third place.

McCarthy was quickest through the opening stage at Ring but then Cronin snatched a 5.6 second lead after the end of the second stage.

McCarthy regained the advantage on the repeat of Ring but Cronin was back in front by the end of stage four.

Meanwhile, another local driver, Donal O’Donovan in a Toyota Celica held a fine third some 14 seconds adrift, however, he was forced out with differential problems at the end of S.S. 5.

Steve Fleck (Subaru) and Ashley Field (Darrian) were best of the rest, the latter leading then rear wheel drive category.

McCarthy led after S.S. 6, the penultimate stage of the day was cancelled for safety reasons and on the final stage, Cronin reduced the deficit to 0.3 of a second.

Elsewhere, Steve Fleck is fourth, Ashley Field fifth in his Darrian and John Dalton, also in a Darrian completes the top six.

In Group N, local driver, James O’Sullivan (Mitsubishi) holds the advantage

There are eight more stages tomorrow.

L. McCarthy/K. Murphy (Subaru WRC) 54m. 23.4s.

D. Cronin/H. O’Sullivan (Subaru WRC) 54m. 23.7s.

T. Davies/J. Kelly (Subaru WRC) 54m. 21.1s.

S. Fleck/M. Aspinall (Subaru WRC) 55m. 29.0s.

A. Field/J. Hooley (Darrian) 55m. 49.0s.

J. Dalton/G. Jones (Darrian) 55m. 53.4s.

B. Fowden/G. Hynes (Subaru) 56m. 13.8s.

JJ Fleming/R. ward (Ford Focus WRC) 56m. 29.1s.

J. O’Sullivan/K. O’Callaghan (Mitsubishi) 56m. 52.4s.

P. Collins/D. Brannigan (Escort) 56m. 58.5s.