Jennings opens season in style
Editorial Department • Published 2 Feb 2012 13:00
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Garry Jennings opened his 2012 season in the best possible fashion when he claimed victory on the Donegal Forestry Rally on Saturday.
The Kesh driver had a memorable end to 2011 as he swept all before him, and he has continued the New Year in a similar fashion, taking the lead of the event on the first stage and never relinquishing it.
It was also a good day for Shane McGirr, who took second in class in his Toyota Starlet after a day long battle with the Escort of Adrian Hetherington.
Garry had taken delivery of a Subaru Impreza just hours before the start of the event, but despite his unfamiliarity with the car he was straight into his stride, and alongside co-driver Barry McNulty he opened up a six second advantage after the first stage.
It was a pattern that was repeated in nine of the ten stages of the rally, as he posted one fastest time after another. His only blemish on an otherwise perfect day was when he hit a rock on stage eight. "We broke a wheel on stage eight but we were still fastest through it," said Garry. "I knew I had broken it when it happened because we hit a big rock. It took a fair bang and if it had been a Group N car the wheel would have been off. The tyre started to go down but not quickly enough to make much difference."
The final margin of victory was 53 seconds, and Garry declared himself happy with his new car, which he intends to use for forestry events.
"I bought the car on Thursday night, got it on Friday and took it straight to the rally," he said. "It's a 1994 Prodrive car but it seems good, despite its age. It's a different driving style. I don't think it would have as much power as the group N car, but it does everything very well. It turns in well and takes bumps well. It's going to Kenny McKinstry's to get a bit of work done to it, and I think it can be made even better than it is now. My problem was my own Group N car was too good to take to the gravel and I always was looking another car for the loose rallies. It's nice to have a car that is old but still fit to battle with the other boys. It's still capable of getting some good results."
Garry will return to the more familiar surroundings of his Mitsubishi Evo this coming weekend for the Galway International Rally.
He intends to try to defend his Group N Irish Tarmac Championship title, but he also has his sights set on bigger things. "The plan is to go to Galway and hope to maybe win the rally altogether," he admitted. "We will be giving it a good push and see how it goes. Seemingly the stages are the same as was run in the 2009 national rally and we led that rally overall until we had an accident, so we are going to Galway very confident of a good overall result."
This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 02 Feb 12
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