Jon Armstrong and Shane Byrne came through in the final few stages of Day 3 to take the win in their Ford Fiesta Rally 2.
Top seeds Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin (Citroen C3) led the way after four stages of the Clonakilty Park Hotel West Cork Rally with some committed driving on the open day’s action on Friday.
After the opening stage at Ballinascarthy they held a 4.8 second led over Josh Moffett and Andy Hayes (Citroen C3). Matt Edwards and David Moynihan (Hyundai i20) were quickest on the second test at Rossmore.
Both stages were then attempted in darkness with Cronin going quicker than his first run over Ballinascarthy and another good time on Rossmore saw him take a 13.2 second lead into the second day.
Edwards holds second place but is being pushed hard by Jon Armstrong and Shane Byrne (Ford Fiesta). Armstrong, on his first visit to West Cork, had no intercom on the first loop of stages, but recovered well to take the fastest time on the fourth stage to lie just 1.4 seconds behind Edwards.
Josh Moffett holds fourth place ahead of Eddie Doherty and David Kelly who are fifth and sixth respectively.
In glorious sunshine on Saturday, the action in the Clonakilty Park Hotel West Cork Rally was at a hot pace between Ballylickey’s Keith Cronin in his Citroen C3 Rally2 and Jon Armstrong in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally 2.
Overnight, Cronin, the reigning Irish Tarmac champion leads Armstrong, who is using the rally as a shakedown for his European Rally Championship campaign by 7.5 seconds.
Indeed, such was their frenetic pace, they beat the bogey time on three of the day’s eight stages. Cronin began the day with a nine-second lead and throughout today, the pair were nip and tuck with Cronin still fine tuning his new Citroen.
Welsh ace Matt Edwards who started out today in third was very much in the hunt until he beached his Hyundai i20 Rally2 on the second run through the Ring stage. That promoted Monaghan’s Josh Moffett to third in his Citroen C3 and 37.9s off second-placed Armstrong. Kilkenny’s Eddie Doherty in a Skoda Fabia R5 lies in fourth place.
All unfolded going into Day 3 at Cork. Going into the final few stages the lead changed as Cronin and Galvin were dogged by understeer issues throughout Saturday, and these became more pronounced on the final day, leading to a near miss with the scenery near the start of the Ardfield stage.
Armstrong and Byrne moved ahead on the next test, Glandore, and went on to take a comfortable victory by 34.8 seconds, despite a late scare with a mechanical issue. The result forms the ideal warm-up for their European Championship campaign which begins in Spain next month.
Josh Moffett and Andy Hayes took third place in another Citroën, over a minute down on Cronin and Galvin, and 43.8 seconds ahead of Eddie Doherty and Tom Doherty, who finished fourth in their Skoda Fabia.
Simon Reid took a hard earned win in the national class as Frank Kelly who led the class going into the final day developed a small misfire for the last 3 stages on Baby Blue as it was trying out its new millington engine. Darragh Walsh and Gary Lombard claimed the junior class.
