Behind him the battle for second place was hotting-up between Curley, Ballentine, Tourish and Cumiskey, who where all separated by just 14 seconds. Frustratingly for Curley, he soon dropped out of contention when the intermittent misfire he had suffered in round two mysteriously re-appeared.
Stepping up his pace, Tourish took second place on SS4 and held position for the day's remaining stages. With the final stage of the day cancelled, at the overnight halt the leader-board showed Murphy in seventh place overall and a staggering five minutes ahead of the next Evo Challenger Tourish, who was now 13 seconds in front of Cumiskey.
Following overnight rain, Sunday dawned clear and bright, with the first stage of the day a second run through Moll's Gap, this time in dry conditions. With more speed attainable, drivers started to push the limits of adhesion. Cumiskey was lucky to get away without a puncture after clipping a rock, whilst Evo Challenge series leader Alan Carmichael was more comfortable on the drier roads and took 36 seconds off his day-one time.
McFall was also gathering pace, but had opted to run without the anti-lag system switched on in order to conserve his turbo and maximise his chances of getting to the finish.
For Michael Murray, the weekend was about to get more frustrating. After a troubled first day a turbo pipe disconnected itself on Sunday morning and, although fixing the problem at the side of the road, the loss of time saw him relegated to the back of the field.
For Murphy, SS11 will be a stage to forget, when at the first corner his car slid wide when cold tyres met a damp surface. The rear of car slammed into a bank which consequently spun his Evo across the road. With too much damage sustained to continue, Murphy had no choice but to call it a day - another bitter end to a top-class performance where he had shown that he and the JFR Lancer had the pace to win Group N outright, and finish well inside the top ten overall as well as dominate the Evo Challenge field.
