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.
Elsewhere, the local trio of Clonakilty's Cal McCarthy (Citroen C3 Rally2), Ovens driver Owen Murphy (Citroen C3 Rally2) and Clonakilty's David Guest (Ford Fiesta Rally2) are tenth, eleventh and twelfth respectively.
McCarthy is having one of his best runs ever in his local event, Murphy changed the suspensions and it transformed the car through Saturday’s latter stages while Guest is having an untroubled run after he adjusted some springs.
The husband and wife crew of Clonakilty's Eamonn and Lisa McCarthy (Honda Civic) are leading Class 11F.
There's a thrilling finish in store across Sunday’s six stages - Ardfield, Glandore and Sam's Cross repeated twice.
Can Cronin keep Armstrong at bay? Armstrong is not registered for the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship and Cronin is conscious of his ITRC bid and the value of maximum points from the opening round.
Positions at the end of Day 2: 1. K. Cronin/M. Galvin (Citroen C3 Rally2) 1h. 14m. 02.5s; 2. J. Armstrong/S. Byrne (Ford Fiesta Rally2)+7.5; 3. J. Moffett/A. Hayes (Citroen C3 Rally2) +45.4s; 4. E. Doherty/T. Murphy (Skoda Fabia R5)+1m. 30.6s; 5. D. Boyle/P. Walsh (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2)+2m. 02.2s; 6. D. Kelly/A. Kierans (VW Polo GTi R5)+2m. 03.2s.
