Day 1
Callum Devine and Noel O’Sullivan held a slim 7.5 second lead over Robert Barrable and Gordon Noble at the end of Day 1 at Killarney.
Last years winners however struggled during the early stages from Saturday morning.
Arriving at the time control with a front-left puncture having clipped a rock, they were immediately 13.6 seconds shy of local crew Rob Duggan and Ger Conway in their identical Volkswagen Polo R5 supermini.
However, just as Duggan and Conway threatened to run away in the race by extending their buffer yet again thanks to another blistering run over ‘Healy Pass’, the tables were turned on yesterday’s third stage.
While Devine and No.2 seed Josh Moffett completed ‘Cods Head’ without interruption, an off for Meirion Evans mid-way through meant the R5 drivers following behind him — including Duggan — were awarded Moffett’s time.
Joining Meirion Evans on the sidelines on Saturday was Carryduff’s Jonathan Greer who crashed out on ‘Molls Gap’, and Gareth MacHale who broke the right-rear wheel on his car after hitting a stone.
Being 15.5 seconds slower, that helped elevate Devine to second place and slashed a near-11 second advantage to two-and-a-half seconds, much to the dismay of Duggan.
Devine went on the offensive and moved to the top of the leaderboard at the end of stage four, ‘Ardgroom’. He strengthened his hand at the end of stage five — the repeat of ‘Healy Pass’ — and did so again on stage number six — the re-run of ‘Cods Head’ — to lead by more than 12 seconds.
With wet patches forcing Devine to err on the side of caution late on, it meant that he returned to the overnight service halt with a reduced buffer over Barrable.
Robert Barrable was 3rd with Josh & his brother Sam rounding up the top 5 respectively.
In the modified section, Kevin Eves and Chris Melley have a 30.7 seconds lead ahead of the field in the two wheel drive class at the Rally of the Lakes after eight stages on Saturday.
Day 2
Callum Devine put down an early marker with a time of 8:44.6 on a very slippy Molls Gap this morning. Devine was 3.5s quicker than Duggan with Barrable 4.2s down on the fastest man.
After SS10 Callum Devine sets another fastest time 1.3s faster than Barrable.
Rob Duggan went four seconds faster than Rally leader Callum Devine on the 2nd run of the day up Molls Gap.
Duggan closes the gap slightly on Barrable who still held second overall.
Then Rob Duggan took nine seconds out of Rally leader Callum Devine on SS12 to regain second overall. Devine still had a 25 second gap overall which he still maintained as we went into the final stages of the day.
There was late drama for early pacesetter Rob Duggan who managed to complete the stage after clipping a bank and damaging the car. Amazingly Duggan was still in fourth overall but nearly six minutes down from the leader.
This elevated Josh Moffett to third, 3 minutes back from Devine.
And that’s how it finished. In the end, Devine did just enough to take another Rally of the Lakes victory and two wins on the spin in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.
Barrable finished 2nd and Josh Moffett came home in 3rd place. Enda O’Brien was 4th and Declan O’Boyle rounded off the top 5.
Gary Kiernan & Codriver John McGrath took the modified class in their MK2 Escort & finished 6th overall.
