Ahead of all of them was Kris Meeke, who had set a string of seriously quick times and was now nearly 2 and a half minutes ahead of Barry Clark, who was the top BRC registered S1600 driver.
Saturday morning dawned on a very damp set of stages and immediately the over night lead board would change as Ryan Champion would once more be caught out by the tricky conditions as he inverted his car mid stage. With his team mate slowing to ensure that both crew were OK this elevated both Gwyndaf Evans and Mark Higgins to the top two positions. Another fastest time for Evans on the next stage, coupled with a cautious run for Higgins, whilst Galligan spent a bit of time extracting himself from a hedge helped assist the Welshman’s lead to over 13 seconds.
Stage 8 saw Kris Meeke disappear through a hedge but Evans once more went quicker than Mark Higgins, although only 0.2 seconds separated the pair on this very slippery 8 mile stage.
Higgins mounted a fight back on the very next stage to close the overall gab to Evans to 3.3 seconds, whilst Galligan, still third, dropped more time to those ahead of him.
The next two stages went to Evans, but both by mere fractions of a second as he and Higgins fought tooth and nail for every possible second, and in doing so gradually pulled away from the chasing pack. Problems for both Stobart Ford Fiesta S1600s meant that James Wozencroft was now leading the class but he was a long way behind the flying Welshman who was heading the proceedings.
Stage 12, a 13.5 mile run through Friary Lough, could possibly have been the turning point as Higgins went nearly 30 seconds faster than Evans but then Higgins picked up a puncture on the very next stage, dropping him loads of time. This was also the first stage win for young Stuart Jones who was gradually moving up the order.
Fastest time for Rory Galligan over the penultimate stage made little difference to Gwyndaf Evans as he was now just maintaining a 55 second lead over Mark Higgins with only the final 2.8 mile super special stage left to go.
