Garry Jennings came within two miles of winning the Circuit of Ireland Rally for the first time, but a final stage accident ended his dreams of victory. The Kesh driver took the lead of the event on the second stage and looked on course for a memorable win but he came under late pressure from Declan Boyle, and in a bid to retain his slender advantage he rolled his Subaru within sight of the finish. It was a disappointing rally for local crews with both Johnny Leonard and Fabian McAleer also failing to finish Ireland’s most famous rally.

Jennings went into the event in second position in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, but having not competed since the Galway International in February he was worried that he may not be immediately on the pace of his rivals. His fears were quickly proved unfounded however as he assumed the lead of the rally after the second stage. Donagh Kelly in his Ford Fiesta was his nearest challenger over the early stages, but Jennings was slowly increasing his lead and when Kelly spun on the fifth stage it left the Fermanagh man with a 23 second advantage over Boyle, a lead he maintained until the overnight halt.

Garry looked to have made a decisive move on stage 12 when he posted a time almost 30 seconds faster than Boyle to open up an advantage of almost a minute, but there was to be late drama. With two stages remaining Garry’s lead stood at a seemingly unassailable 53 seconds but he fell back into the clutches of Boyle when he suffered a puncture on the penultimate test. “With about five kilometres to go we got a puncture on the front right hand wheel,” explained Garry. “It was really narrow stuff and she wouldn’t turn in, and I ended up sliding up onto a bank about a mile from the end. We got stuck there and it took a bit of time to get it back down and over the finish line.” That slip wiped out almost all of Garry’s lead and he had to head into the final nine mile stage just three seconds ahead of Boyle. He was further hindered by the fact his spare tyre was not an ideal replacement.

“We changed tyres before the last stage but the spare I had with me was a left tyre so I had to put it on with the tread facing the wrong way on the back,” he said. “I had a bulged tyre as well from when I went off on the stage so that had to go on the back as well, and I had to go for it at the same time. Just about three or four miles from the end it started to go wrong. The car started to get wavy and the grip wasn’t there but we knew had to push on because second was no good for us. On the second last junction, a big fast off camber junction, I touched the bank on the right hand side and it flipped me up into the air and rolled me down the road.” The crash could have ended Garry’s hopes of retaining his Irish Tarmac Championship title. Not only did the accident leave him with no points from the second round but with the next round in Killarney only two weeks away Garry admits he is unlikely to have the Subaru fixed in time, and it may be Donegal in June before he is back on the stages again.

After a non-finish on the opening round of the Northern Ireland Stage Championship Jonny Leonard was hoping to get his season underway with a good finish on the Circuit, but he hit problems early on and eventually retired on the opening stage of day two.

“We had brake troubles on the first loop and because of that we had a small trip into the scenery,” revealed Jonny. “We lost all brakes then before the service so we had to do a whole stage without anything, which was fun! We dropped a lot of time but we managed to get it all sorted in service and the second loop was fine and we were able to gather a bit of confidence again.

We thought we would have a fresh start on Saturday morning, but then about two miles from the end of the first stage the gearbox cried enough and that was it. It was disappointing because it was a great rally.”