AS THE AA Circuit of Ireland left Limerick on Easter Sunday morning on the long haul to Sligo and on to Bangor for today's finish, Steven Finlay led Andrew Nesbitt by 30 seconds. Bertie Fisher had pulled out all the stops on Saturday's stages to narrow the gap to Nesbitt to nine seconds, while Liam O'Callaghan dropped back to, fourth when his Toyota Celica suffered inter cooler trouble.

By the time they reached the Sligo halt, Finlay had extended his lead at the top, but significantly, Fisher had moved up to second place, 58 seconds behind the leader. Nesbitt was back in third place after suffering a harrowing moment on stage 23, when after losing control, was lucky to get away with rear end damage to his Toyota.

Fisher was on a charge to win his second Circuit of Ireland and although suffering a puncture he was quickly back on the road in pursuit of Finlay, who was pacing himself with the grim determination of a man out to repeat his 1994 win. Nesbitt, meanwhile, was drying his own rally, commenting "I'm not getting involved in the Finlay/Fisher battle".

After Sligo the route took the cars to Bangor last night and the 23 surviving crews will tackle nine more stages today to the mid afternoon finish in Bangor.