Johnston loses ground on rivals

Editorial Department • Published 1 Oct 2009 14:06 0 Comments

Share this

Raymond Johnston slipped two points behind the Group N Championship leader following the latest round of the Northern Ireland Rally Championship.

The season long battle for class honours has turned into a three way fight between the Ballinamallard driver, Donagh Kelly and Neil McCance, but Raymond lost ground to both his rivals at Saturday's Omagh based Bushwacker Rally when he finished ninth overall and fourth in Group N.

After two of the day's ten stages Raymond was well positioned for a challenge, but the third stage was to prove a decisive moment of the rally. "We came into a chicane too quick and clouted the side of the car off it," explained Raymond. "The chicanes were really tight, and there was a few people complaining about them, and we had to reverse twice to get round it and that cost us about ten seconds. That was almost race over because we were then 16 seconds down by the first service."

The remainder of the rally was relatively trouble free, but the gap to McCance and Kelly was too great to claw back. McCance claimed maximum points in the class, and despite not entering several of the early rounds of the series, his recent form means that if he can both of the two remaining rounds and other results go his way he can still take the title. Current leader Donagh Kelly finished one place ahead of Johnston, and remains the marginal favourite for the title.

The penultimate round of the series is the Down Rally based at Castlewellan, and although Raymond has never competed on the event before he is hopeful that he can still be competitive. "It is a rally I have never done, but sometimes the ones you have never done before go better."

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 01 Oct 09

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.