Jonny Leonard and Jackie Donaldson had an unfortunate ending to round 7 of the Hankook MSA NI Rally Championship, The Fisher Engineering Lakeland Stages Rally, based in their home town of Ballinamallard.

Heavy rain in the week leading up to the event left all competitors challenging conditions to contend with. Nevertheless, Leonard’s Hankook shod Fiesta made it to service in the village of Garrison with a commanding lead in class one.

Commenting in service, Jonny said: “This morning went fairly well for us; we had a steady run through the first stage, but we dropped some time on stage 2 with an overshoot. That aside we stepped the pace up a bit on the ‘Carrigans’ stage, I really enjoyed it, it’s very fast and there is a lot of commitment needed. The suspension set-up seemed to work, the notes were good and the Hankook tyres coped really well with the wet conditions”

The crew left the service halt in their FAL Hire backed Fiesta to tackle the second loop of the rally consisting of the same four stages,

“We decided to push on a bit on the second loop, particularly on stages 7 and 8 as the fast and bumpy sections were more suited to the car and my driving style” Jonny explained. Indeed this seemed to reflect on the time sheets as the young Fermanagh man posted a time on the penultimate test of 11:48, which was good enough for a respectable 24^th fastest overall.

However, Disaster struck on the final stage when Leonards Fiesta slid off the road, and the crew were unable to get the car out.

“We were having a really good run on the stage when we had a bit of a slide on a 5right and the back wheel dropped down into a sheugh, I kept the power on to try and pull us out, but the sheugh got wider and pulled us in, we tried to get the car out but there were no spectators in sight so it was story over”

Fortunately this is the crew’s first non-finish of a very consistent season, so the result does not affect their championship position. However Jonny and Jackie will be looking for a strong finish on Round 8, The Bushwhacker stages rally to keep their hopes of the Hankook Junior prize drive alive.