McNulty comfortable winner of Galway Rally

The Subaru WRC team of Tim McNulty and Paul Kiely emerged as comfortable winners of the seventh round of the Dunlop National Rally Championship in Galway on Sunday.

Based at the Lough Rea Hotel & Spa, McNulty dominated the Mór Oil Galway Summer Rally event and finished two minutes and 52 seconds ahead of the Subaru WRC of Kevin Barrett and Sean Mullally. Sam Moffett and James O’Reilly (Mitsubishi) were third.

With an impressive start, McNulty gleaned a 14-second lead from the stage near Tynagh where Barrett was his closest rival – with Niall Maguire a further six behind in third.

Group N contender Moffett also made a bright opening to hold fourth in general classification and an eleven-second lead over showroom rival Shane Maguire (Subaru).

McNulty punched in the best times for the remaining stages of the loop and arrived at the Loughrea service halt with a lead of 27 seconds.

The rally leader remarked that the stages were quite slippery and demanded good concentration.

Meanwhile, Maguire slotted into second place and was particularly pleased with his performance through Special Stage Three (SS3) where he was within five seconds of McNulty.

Third placed Barrett lost significant time on the third test due to the state of the soft compound tyres on his Subaru WRC.