As if all this wasn’t enough, with two-thirds of the event still to run, the front runners struck trouble as well. First, Paul Bird, driving Manfred Stohl’s MSD Deutschland Hyundai Accent WRC3 and in a very impressive fifth place, had a monster roll, ending up on his roof and blocking the stage. Luckily he and co-driver Larry Carter were unhurt, but one can only imagine Paul’s anguish, especially after receiving news of Steve Hislop’s untimely death a few hours before. Then Dougie Hall repeated his Scottish roll, and current British Touring Car Champion James ‘Tommo’ Thompson rolled his Mitsuishi over a bank and into a 20-foot deep ditch, comprehensively ending any chance of Manx glory. A crane was duly despatched to get it out.
Just two stages later, news came through of yet another major accident. Jari-Matti Latvala, who had been really going for it in a bid to get in front of Milner, misjudged one of the many Manx corners and damaged the M-Sport Focus too badly to continue. Fortunately it wasn’t nearly as severe as his
Jim Clark accident which put co-driver Carl Williamson in hospital. Latvala is undoubtedly a star of the future – one has only to witness his total commitment to see that – but pacing himself will presumably be part of the learning curve.
A late Friday casualty was Dick Curran, who had been challenging Seamus Leonard for the Production class. He retired with differential problems from 10th overall. After all this unexpected action, crews, officials, media and crews were quite content to go quietly off to bed, but there was more to come. Tapio Laukkanen had been suffering from a leaking/cracked exhaust manifold for half the day, and the resulting loss of power was beginning to affect his chances of taking the fight to Milner. By the final service, the team had decided to change the damaged elbow in the manifold, which is, apparently, a most tricky job on an Impreza WRC, even with the engine out of the car. Without this luxury, Phil Morgan’s crew had a real job on their hands, and they were unable to line up the bolts and get the bits back together in the time allotted. Result: late into parc fermé and exclusion.
