Eamonn Boland took his second Global Group Irish Tarmac Rally Championship win in succession at the weekend, when he came out top on the Ordnance Survey Ireland International Rally of the Lakes.
Boland was pushed hard on the third round in the series, but in the end triumphed by over three minutes. Indeed Eamonn led for all but four of the events 17 stages in his Subaru Impreza and while Tim McNulty did lead at one point, the 2006 winner went out on the penultimate stage on day 1, when he put his S12B off the road.
After that Gareth MacHale put Boland under pressure and cut the gap to just 2.5 seconds, until he also made a mistake, crashing his Ford Focus in SS14, leaving Eamonn to cruise to the end.
Derek McGarrity meanwhile took the runners-up spot, while Dessie Keenan was third, a further 40 seconds further back.
Further down the order Aaron MacHale came in fourth with former Junior WRC runner Kris Meeke a fantastic fifth in a Renault Clio S1600 on his first event of the year.
Patrick Elliott and PJ McGrath were sixth and seventh respectively, while Group N winner Kevin Kelleher came in eighth in his Evo, over 30 seconds up on Alan Ring, who was second in the class and ninth.
John McGlaughlin rounded out the top ten, followed by Brendan Cumiskey and Sean Flanagan.
The 2008 Global Group Irish Tarmac Rally Championship now resumes with the
Jim Clark International Rally, which runs from May 23-25 - and which is also a round of the Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship.
