No joy for ashbourne driver at midland rally
Having gone well in round one of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship, Ashbourne driver Jack Newman approached the second round, the Midland Moto Stages Rally, in a positive mood, but a catalogue of issues plagued the 280bhp Escort Mk2 from the off.
On the opening stage, the crew struggled with a badly misted windscreen, the same issue hampering them until service after stage three.
Despite this, Jack was happy with the pace and confident he could push harder later in the day. A decision to run a hard rear slick was to cost him further time however, when the rain came on stage four and five.
Even worse was the fact that an intermittent electrical problem was causing the car to cut out. Once back to service, the team got to work replacing ignition, master switch and any other possible suspect items in the hope of curing the problem.
The efforts were unsuccessful as the problem remained and on stage 8 Jack was unable to stop the car at a junction and the Escort sustained considerable damage in the subsequent impact.
'It was just one of those days', said Jack afterwards, 'when everything goes wrong. The car is already off to the bodyshop though, and the ECU has been sent away for inspection. Hopefully that's all the bad luck out of the way and we can show what we are capable in Monaghan later this month. As ever, I would like to thank all of my sponsors for their ongoing support.'
RESULTS
MIDLAND MC ABBEY HOTEL/CASEY'S TOPAZ MOTO STAGES RALLY AT ROSCOMMON (ROUND 2 OF TRITON SHOWERS NATIONAL RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP, LOUGHRANSIGNS.COM MIDLANDS
EAST CHAMPIONSHIP AND JOHNSTONS TOYTOWN CHAMPIONSHIP):
1 Donagh Kelly/Kevin Flanagan (Focus WRC) 54m 46s,
2 Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 56m 51s,
3 Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Impreza WRC) 57m 45s,
4 Gary McPhillips/Paul Sheridan (Escort) 58m 10s,
5 Chris Armstrong/James Fulton (Escort) 58m 23s,
6 Kevin Barrett/Sean Mullally (Impreza WRC) 58m 48s,
7 Jonathan Pringle/Martin Byrne (Escort) 58m 52s,
8 Declan Boyle/Brian Boyle (Impreza WRC) 59m 02s,
9 Euan Thorburn/Paul Beaton (Fiesta) 59m 14s,
10 Roy White/James O'Brien (MG ZR S2400) 59m 14s.
Motorsport Safety Team Group N award:
1 Aidan Wray/Kieran McGrath.
rally.ie Two wheel drive award:
Gary McPhillips/Paul Sheridan.
Historics: 1 Niall Keane/Conor Keane (Sunbeam) 48m 58s,
2 Iarla Carty/Joe Whyte (Mini) 52m 20s.
Juniors:
1 James Bradley/Maria Kehoe (Civic) 41m 57s,
2 Daren O'Brien/John McCabe (Civic) 42m 26s,
3 Gary McNamee/Breen McNamee (Civic) 43m 17
NEXT UP
Next outing for Jack Newman and navigator Andrew Browne is the Monaghan Stages Rally on Sunday 26th April.