“We had never been on the stages before, so we started reasonably slowly”, explained Gary after his first visit to the forestry tracks around Swansea. “The stages were all fast and flowing with lots of fourth and fifth gear stuff, and it was a bit of a shock to discover that the first stage was seventeen miles long”.

    With one stage covering more mileage than some entire rallies, and a style of forestry stage, the like of which is rarely seen in Ireland, Gary found himself at the bottom of a very steep learning curve. In addition, the supplied pace notes for the event were of a type not previously used by the Fermanagh pair. This unfamiliarity with the conditions manifested itself in a twenty second time loss to the leaders over the first test, but from then on the local pairing found themselves getting more and more competitive throughout the day. “We were trying to pace ourselves against Rory Galligan because he had been in those forests for the last three years”, explained Gary “and we were there or thereabouts. On our second run through the seventeen miler we were only three seconds down on him”.

    The ultra-competitive nature of the Peugeot one make championship, however, meant that any time loss was always going to be difficult to regain, and Gary was more than happy to eventually settle for a steady sixth place finish at the end of the final stage, adding more vital championship points to his total.

    At the head of the field, it was another up and coming young Northern Irish driver who took the top spot. Kris Meeke, son of Sydney Meeke, who for many years was responsible for the preparation of the late Bertie Fisher’s rally cars, seems to be carrying on the family’s rallying tradition. After two non finishes in the first two rounds of the championship, during which the young Dungannon man showed his potential without getting any reward, Kris’ luck finally took a turn for the better as he saw off all challengers to seal victory.

    With scores to count from six of the eight rounds that are currently scheduled to run, Gary now has a first, a fourth and a sixth in the bag, and lies second overall in the overall standings, a mere three points behind leader Ryan Champion. “It’s good to get a sixth which I can use as a back up if I have problems in any of the other rounds”, reckons Gary, “especially as most of the other top runners already have at least non-finish”.