After that he enjoyed a trouble-free run.
“We’ve been driving flat out but there’s been a lot of loose gravel on the surface of the roads,” the Ford Focus driver said, while acknowledging that Burns could derive significant advantage from his tactical move. The Scot began the second day of the four- day rally in strong form but lost time when a right front tyre punctured. Burns clocked in at the final time control three minutes late to collect the time penalty, believing that by starting behind his three main rivals he would have the benefit of running on a road swept clean by their cars He is now 13.6sec behind McRae. COLIN McRAE led the Acropolis Rally after the Subaru driver Richard Burns ended yesterday’s final stage with a 16.4 second lead – but elected to take a 30sec time penalty and start today’s run in fourth place. I can hardly believe that it has happened.”Results, Digest, page 23. I’ve been coming to the TT as a spectator since 1982 and I just hoped that one day I could get the chance to win.

“There was no pressure to go out and win, but for me it is a dream come true. McGuinness shattered the lap record for the first time, at 117.88mph, and then, to show it was no fluke, next time around, he stretched his advantage to 21sec with a lap of 118.29mph.”I decided to go for it from the off, and was running first on the road on the second lap – in fact if I had got past them earlier, my speed would have been better as they were holding me up,” said McGuinness, who maintained the pace in the second half of the race, after a brief re-fuelling stop, easily heading off the challenge of the Yamaha rider, Jason Griffiths, with Gavin Lee third.”Winning is a real delight – we came over here to enjoy ourselves,” McGuinness said. I am disappointed to have finished fifth, and just hope that my fortunes improve later in the week.”Courtney was air-lifted to hospital in Douglas with suspected fractures as the race continued. It was a ride of sheer quality and one that broke the five-year stranglehold on the event of the record 23-times winner, Joey Dunlop, but it came in a race that once again underlined the dangers of riding on this torturous circuit with its high-speed lap of the island, through towns, villages, over Snaefell mountain and along country roads lined by stone walls.
McGuinness had already raced through the Greba Castle section of the course, but Dunlop was just entering it as he saw his fellow Ulsterman, James Courtney, crash, with his Aprilia slamming into a wall.”I saw it all, right in front of me – maybe he touched the kerb and that threw him, but it was very scary,” Dunlop, the 47-year-old Ballymoney publican, said “It totally de-tuned me. JOHN McGUINNESS made a boyhood dream come true as he powered to a comfortable victory in the Isle of Man 250cc Lightweight TT, the 25- year-old Lancastrian shattering the lap and race records around the demanding 37.73 mile Mountain Course as he charged his Vimto Honda to maiden glory. Get Woolmer.Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Well, Woolmer, when he was at Warwickshire in 1994, had the most successful season in county history.The last time England sent for a man called Fletcher who had flourished at county level, it might as well have been Ronnie Barker, for all the good it did Get real, gentlemen.

He could be excellent, but the main evidence in his favour is that he has steered a team to the County Championship. It is only if you set store by words rather than actions, or by political manoeuvring than results, that he can be regarded as having drifted out in the betting.There is sudden support for Duncan Fletcher, the Glamorgan Zimbabwean, some of it from my most respected colleagues. And so, give or take a hiccup against Zimbabwe, has Woolmer’s reputation. England’s need for a coach of proven international calibre has become all the greater. “Loyalties lie very much with the person who pays you a cheque at the end of the month.”If the lie of the land has changed in the past couple of weeks, it should have done so in Woolmer’s favour.

So it should be – at the moment.When I interviewed him 18 months ago, I asked the same question in reverse – won’t you have divided loyalties when you tour England with the South Africans? “No,” he said. And he has given a misleading impression about the location of his loyalties He has been quoted as saying his heart is in South Africa. He has been too open about his options – they include rejoining Warwickshire, or staying in South Africa to set up an academy. They got better partly because Hansie Cronje (a young thruster) took over as captain from Kepler Wessels (who only ever thrusted the pad out at the ball), but mainly because Woolmer quickly proved himself the most progressive, scientific, open-minded coach in the game.Woolmer has made a couple of tactical errors lately.