After the 4th round of the British Rally Championship (BRC), the Ulster Rally in Enniskillen, Daniel and Co-Driver Arthur Kierans took their third victory in a row in the Rally Two (R2) Category to extend their lead in the championship by 7 points from Norwegian driver Steve Rokland after an extremely tough and testing event.
After a very challenging Recce on the Thursday, all of the crews knew that they had a very tough event ahead of them as the stages where very bumpy with a mix of fast and technical sections but the biggest challenge was going to be the mixed weather conditions as showers where forecast for the two days competition.
After a number of runs on the shakedown stage Friday morning where Daniel made some small suspension adjustments to the Scanbitz Ltd and Ravenol Motoroil Lubricants supported Fiesta R2 to cope with the wet weather, it was on to the ceremonial in Enniskillen Town Centre start and then straight into the action on stage 1 just outside Enniskillen.
Stage one was going well for the crew until about 2 miles into the test the fiesta dropped power when the V-tech system on the engine stopped working properly severely hindering the crews progress, but even with the problem they managed 4th fastest time overall, 2nd fastest time in R2 only 4 seconds behind R2 leader Jon Armstrong. Daniel and Arthur knew what the problem was, as it was a re-occurrence of the problem they had in the Jim Clark rally, but they were limited to what they could do to repair it before the first service after stage three. They were able to repair the problem to a certain degree but they knew they would lose more time over the next two stages. They got through the stages holding 2nd in R2 and 5th overall as the wet roads helped somewhat with the power loss. In service the problem was fixed and the crew were happy to hold their position as they were in line to extend their championship lead.
After stage 4 the St, Angelo airport spectator stage it was a repeat of the first three stages. Daniel decided to make sure they stayed on the road and stayed ahead of main championship contender Rokland. Jon Armstrong extended his lead over Daniel by the end of the 1st leg by 58 seconds and was going to be very hard to catch. Daniel however had a major worry as he came to the end of the final stage of the day when the gearbox of the Fiesta started to make an internal bearing noise and it looked like the 2nd leg was to be a matter of survival for the crew. All the service crew could do was to change the gearbox oil at every service and hope that the noise would not get any worse as it may mean that Daniel and Arthur would have to retire the car rather than destroying the expensive gearbox.
The 1st stage Saturday morning was the daunting Sloghen Glen stage and a big shock to the system for Daniel and all of the other crews as Daniel and Arthur where the 1st crew at the scene of the John Mc Crone accident where Daniel raised the alarm as it was obvious that the crew needed medical assistance and the stage was then cancelled.
After the crew where safely escorted away to hospital it was on to the next stage. Again Daniel and Arthur received another surprise early in the stage as they came across Jon Armstrong’s accident which then saw the crew promoted to leading R2 and 3rd overall. At the 1st service of the day the gearbox was monitored and Daniel was happy the problem was not getting worse but the oil was changed at every service as a precaution. Holding a 30 second lead with 6 stages to go it was decided to remain on a steady pace and hope that the gearbox would hold out.
Daniel was very happy to be in a podium position but with the roads drying out Daniel knew it was going to be extremely difficult to keep the more powerful R3 cars at bay. Daniel was willing to sacrifice overall positions for the safety of keeping his position of 1st R2. Daniel and Arthur closed out the remaining stages with no problems as the gearbox did hold out and the pair took a credible 5th overall and a 48 second win in the Rally two category.
Daniel and Arthur were absolutely delighted with the result and it really puts the crew on the front foot in the championship with only two rounds remaining. Daniel is feeling very confident ahead of the next round, the Trakrod rally of Yorkshire as Daniel has competed on the event in 2010 and won’t be on the back foot in terms of knowledge of the stages.
Daniel will let you all know how preparations are going for the Trakrod rally with a pre-event press release so keep an eye on his website, Twitter and Facebook pages over the next few weeks.
