Despite not being included on the Citroen World Rally Championship team this year, Waterford rally ace Craig Breen got his season off to a great start by scoring a 14-second win in the Corrib Oil Galway International Rally yesterday, heading a clean sweep of the top four positions by Ford Fiesta drivers. Breen, with his Killarney co-driver Paul Nagle, dropped some time on the opening stage when he overshot a junction, leaving double Galway winners Garry Jennings and Rory Kennedy as the early leaders in their Impreza.
Stage two saw Alastair Fisher and Gordon Noble set the best time in their Fiesta, briefly giving them the lead, but Breen took over the top place at the end of the first loop of the three stages, just three-tenths of a second ahead of Jennings. The Fermanagh and Waterford rivals swapped positions twice more in quick succession before Jennings slid off the road and out of the rally, and Breen was never headed for the rest of the day. Fisher finished as the runner up, with defending Irish Tarmac
