Bertie Fisher and Rory Kennedy in a Subaru Impreza scored a very convincing victory over Ian Greer and Dean Beckett in a Toyota Celica GT in the weekend's Statoil Galway International Rally. The margin after the two-day event being 1 minute 43 seconds. Eamon Boland and Damien Morrissey were third in a Ford Escort WRC ahead of the Impreza of Andrew Nesbitt and James O'Brien.

The sting went out of the rally before the start of the first stage on Saturday, when Austin McHale's Toyota Celica GT4 retired with a broken input driveshaft. The reigning tarmac champion and six times Galway winner was warming the tyres for the 7.7 miles Kilcoona stage, near Tuam, when the transmission shaft snapped leaving McHale and codriver Brian Murphy well and truly stranded.

With McHale's untimely demise, Fisher and Kennedy had no real threat and easily led by eight seconds from Greer and Beckett.

Fisher was unchallenged over yesterday`s stages in the Gort area.