Published: Thursday, 24th June, 2010 4:00pm

Fisher top of Group N when tragic death stops rally

Alastair Fisher in action in Donegal at the wekeend before the race was stopped due an an accident that claimed the life of Thomas Maguire from Meath.

Alastair Fisher maintained his slender lead of the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship with sixth overall on last weekend's Donegal Rally, but the event will be remembered for the tragic death of co-driver Thomas Maguire which forced an early end to proceedings.

The fatal accident, which occurred on a high speed section of the Knockalla stage, meant the results were declared final after stage ten giving Alastair an additional ten points towards his championship challenge. That leaves him three points ahead of Aaron MacHale and one ahead of Gareth MacHale, although if dropped scores are taken into consideration he would drop behind the brothers.

"All it takes is for one non finish for Gareth and Aaron, so we are still just about in it," said Alastair. "We will need circumstances to go our way." The battle in the Group N championship is much more clear cut, with Alastair's speed and consistency helping him to a commanding lead with two rounds remaining in the series.

With Garry Jennings narrowly failing to make his way off the reserve list and into the starting pack, local hopes were pinned on Alastair and he quickly into his stride, lying seventh overall and second in Group N after the first two tests. The dry tarmac meant he was unable to repeat his early season heroics and challenge the high performance cars for the outright lead, but he settled into second in class behind the hard charging Craig Breen and was content to adjust his tactics and maximise his points haul.

He finished the opening day in a secure seventh and was holding his position on Saturday before the rally was brought to a premature end.

"We had no real problems and everything went alright," he said. "We couldn't really do anything with the world rally cars and Craig seemed to come into good form on the dry stages and had some good times, but we couldn't really go much harder. We were driving with the championship in mind."

While Alastair's Irish Tarmac Championship challenge is in good health, the same cannot be said for his assault on the British Rally Championship. A series of non-finishes have left him struggling to keep up with the series leaders, but he will be hoping his next outing on the Rally Isle of Man in two weeks time will give him a much needed boost.