Eugene Donnelly took the overall honours on the Philip White Tyres Ulster Rally Saturday - round six of the Kwik Fit Pirelli British Rally Championship
and round seven of the Pirelli Irish championship.
In the process Donnelly broke Mark Higgins' run of four successive wins.
Donnelly though had to fight 'tooth and nail' with eventual runner-up, Tim McNulty over the final four stages. Going into the last 21 stage miles, just 16 seconds separated the two and on the first stage out of final service, Donnelly was quickest.
McNulty was faster on the next two however, but Donnelly rose to the challenge and beat McNulty over the final stage to secure victory by just 7.9 seconds. As such he has now extended his Pirelli Irish Championship lead over Derek McGarrity and McNulty with one round to go.
McGarrity finished third to take the final spot on the podium, while Eamon Boland was fourth ahead of the top Kwik-Fit Pirelli Championship points scorer Austin MacHale. Over the closing stages, MacHale had come under pressure from Matthew Wilson.
"He was pushing hard over those stages," said MacHale, "and I could so easily have lost it. On the final stage, which was run at 30 second intervals, we were seeded in amongst national runners and that cost me a lot, but we made it and it keeps the championship title race alive."
Sixth overall then was Matt Wilson who had tried hard to displace MacHale to take points away to benefit his team-mate and British Championship leader Mark Higgins.
"That was mega," said Wilson on his return to the BRC, after his accident on the Rally of Wales. "I've enjoyed my two days over here - it's just so good to be back and especially to have a fastest stage time [in SS15] when the Irish boys were still trying."
