Eamonn Boland and Damien Morrissey started well in the Toddsleap.com Ulster International Rally with their NVD Subaru Impreza setting best times on all three of the opening stages centred on Ballygawley, Co Tyrone, giving them a lead of 18 seconds.

The Wexford-Waterford pair are virtually certain  to clinch the Global Group Irish Tarmac Championship, as the only rivals who could possibly catch them, three times British champion Mark Higgins and his Letterkenny co-driver Rory Kennedy, would need to win both this event and the final round in Cork next month, even if Boland fails to score again.

Higgins was in third place, behind Englishman Guy Wilks and David Moynihan from Mallow, and they are involved in the separate battle for the Tesco 99 Octane British title, with the Ulster Rally counting for both series.

Eamonn Boland and Damien Morrissey yesterday scored their fourth major win this year to clinch the Global Group Irish Tarmac Championship, finishing the Toddsleap.com Ulster International Rally with their NVD Subaru Impreza 29 seconds clear of the similar car of Kevin Lynch and Gordon Noble after leading right from Friday's first stage.

 
Three times British champion Mark Higgins and his Letterkenny co-driver Rory Kennedy, the only pairing who still had an outside chance of beating the Wexford-Waterford combination to the Irish title, finished third overall and won the Tesco 99 Octane British Championship section in their Group N Production Impreza, a minute ahead of Guy Wilks and Corkman David Moynihan.

Gwyndaf Evans had been drafted in to replace Phillip Morrow in the second Mitsubishi Motors UK Lancer. He was joined by Paul Nagle and a clean run saw them take a creditable third place after a ten month lay-off for the 1996 BRC Champion.

But it was Morrow who took the fourth position in the Pirelli Star Driver shootout at the end of the year, impressing the judges with a mature drive in his new Atlas TEG Sport team. He also took fourth place on the BRC in a mature drive on home soil. Current Star Driver, Armagh’s own Darren Gass had been fourth, but a roll and subsequent steering failure put him out of the event.

The Rally 3 class was settled in favour of Brian O’Mahony, his Clio Super 1600 struggling all rally with a down-on-power engine. He nearly lost the gearbox too on the final loop of stages, then bent a rear wishbone, but he still managed sixth overall in the BRC.

Rally 2 was blitzed by the Jim Clark Rally and International Pirelli Star Driver nominee again, Adam Gould’s less powerful Clio taking eighth, a minor indiscretion with a bank the only evidence of any excursions.

The Citroën C2R2 Cup was also dominated, this time by Martin McCormack, who also took honours in the Irish Cup. It was his first finish in the BRC without using the Super Rally regulations, about which he was delighted. Citroen's young charger Sebastien Ogier driving a C2R2 Max finished an amazing 13th overall with a total time some 8 minutes quicker than McCormack.

The Suzuki Swift Sport Cup also threw up a dominant performance from Ross Forde, beating round one winner Gordon Nichol by a whisker over four minutes. The result leaves the Championship wide open as the crews all head off to the next round, Rally Yorkshire at the end of September.

The final class winner was Fin McCaul in the Diesel Cup, his BMW proving a match for the Astra of Steve Graham.

1 Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Subaru Impreza WRC) 1h 56m 14s,

2 Kevin Lynch/Francis Regan (Subaru Impreza WRC) 1h 56m 43s,

3 Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Subaru Impreza Gp N) 1h 58m 23s,

4 Guy Wilks/David Moynihan (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 Gp N) 1h 59m 26s,

5 Derek McGarrity/James McKee (Subaru Impreza WRC) 1h 59m 38s,

6 Kenny McKinstry/Noel Orr (Subaru Impreza WRC) 2h 00m 26s,

7 Gwyndaf Evans/Paul Nagle (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 Gp N) 2h 00m 31s,

8 Philip Morrow/Gordon Noble (Subaru Impreza Gp N) 2h 01m 35s,

9 Glenn Allen/Damien Connolly (Toyota Corolla WRC) 2h 02m 46s,

10 David Higgins/Ieuan Thomas (Subaru Impreza Gp N) 2h 02m 44s.