Donnelly and Hughes dominate incident-packed Samsonas Fivemiletown Rally

Mark Donnelly claimed his second Fivemiletown victory in two years

Omagh's Mark Donnelly/Cathair Hughes took their VW Polo GTi R5 to victory in the Samsonas Fivemiletown Rally. Top seed Niall McGonigle retired his Ford Fiesta Rally2 on the opening stage with transmission issues while early leader Derek Mackarel (Ford Fiesta R5) was forced out after SS2 with a broken wheel. Pic: William Neill.

The Omagh crew of Mark Donnelly/Cathair Hughes (VW Polo GTi R5) came out best in an incident-packed Samsonas Fivemiletown Rally where at the end of Saturday's eight stages they had 17.3s to spare over the Ford Fiesta Rally2 of Omagh's Gareth Mimnagh and his Isle of Man co-driver James Barry McCarney. Monaghan's Josh Moffett (Hyundai R5) and his Wexford co-driver Andy Hayes were 11.9s further behind in third.

Top seed and last year's winner Niall McGonigle made an early exit, his Ford Fiesta Rally2 suffering gear linkage failure on the 6.98 mile (Jenkin) first stage. Monaghan's Derek Mackarel, running a 32mm restrictor on his Ford Fiesta R5, actually set the quickest time - 1.5s ahead of Donnelly, who spun and stalled his VW Polo R5 with Sion Mills driver Darragh Cairns, also in a VW Polo GTi R5, 5.2s further behind in third.