by Chris Caldwell
JUST a week after toasting victory at the Tour of the Sperrins Rally, Garry Jennings was spraying champagne following success at the Proflex Manx Rally.
The Kesh man has been in fine form since the start of the 2025 season and on Friday and Saturday he continued to prove he’s as fast as ever when he beat Jason Pritchard by almost 40 seconds over two days and 18 stages of action on the Isle of Man. However, he did feel like he’d gatecrashed someone else’s birthday party by doing so!
“I really enjoyed it but it was quite funny, it was like going to a birthday you weren’t asked to!,” he laughed.
“These boys are all regulars over there, the top 20 are all in Rally2 cars and it’s all of a sudden someone else has come to the party who wasn’t asked.
“But we had a ball, we really enjoyed it and to beat young [Jason] Pritchard,the fella who was second, he’s won that rally five times and he was driving the best car you can get, the new Rally2 Toyota.
“So the competition meant it wasn’t a walk in the park.”
Garry pictured above with co-driver Robert Kennedy.
The former Irish Tarmac Rally champion, who as usual, had Rory Kennedy on the notes, took the first four stages of the event to settle into his relatively new surroundings, having not raced the Manx in around two decades.
But once he found his rhythm, there was no stopping Jennings as he engineered a near one minute lead following Friday night’s stages in the dark.
And although Pritchard did reign the Fermanagh man back a little on Saturday, Jennings was fairly comfortable throughout and he was delighted to add his name to a spectacular list of former winners, including two World Rally champions.
“We went very well in the dark, we went from a four second lead to a 54 seconds lead in the dark so once we had that lead it was just about managing it,” he explained.
“But on the big long second on Saturday, Pritchard did take 25 seconds out of us and I did think I was going hard. But he said he’s done that stage probably 100 times and it was just a real dirty bit of road with sump guard marks everywhere and I need my car next weekend so I didn’t want to damage it, so maybe I backed off too much. It gave him some incentive to come after us, but on the next three we were faster again.
“And I didn’t know this until we were at the finish ramp, but that rally has been won by Colin McRae, Richard Burns, Bertie Fisher [with co-driver Kennedy 35 years earlier], to name just a few.
“I went there thinking it was just another rally but to the people of the Isle of Man, to the people of the UK because it’s a round of the UK Championship, it’s a big, big thing. I genuinely didn’t realise that.”
After claiming back-to-back wins, Jennings admits that not only is his confidence good, but so too is his ‘head-space’and the fact he has eldest daughter Jessica at events with him now helps him perform so well.
“I’m in a good head space at the minute,” he confirmed. “[Stages] are somewhere you can go and for 10 or 12 minutes you don’t think about anything else in the whole world apart from the road in front of you and it’s just a great feeling to do that.
“I’m a bit more relaxed and it allows me to put everything else that’s going on in the world to one side and it’s enjoyable. When you’re thinking about nothing else it’s a nice feeling. All that leads to a smoother and faster drive.
“And Jessica is 14 now and she comes to rallies with me now, she’s taking a big interest, so it’s good that she comes as well and to have her there and be part of it is special.”
Next up for Jennings is this coming weekend’s Circuit of Ireland Rally, which, his body allowing, he’s confident he can do well at.
“At [the Circuit] we’ll have to make our pacenotes on Thursday, so I have no time to recover and to be fair, I am sore,” he acknowledged.
“I’m wrecked! I’m sore, I’ve never been as sore but I think we’re in a good mind-set. The Circuit of Ireland is different gravy, it’s the top level of the sport but we’re on form, we’re not going there to make up the numbers.
“There will probably be expectation on us this weekend, but I don’t really worry about that or the result, I’m going to go and enjoy myself and we’ll see what happens.
“I’m in a good head space, I’ve never felt as good in years, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Related posts:
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere
SUBSCRIBE TO CURRENT EDITION TODAY
and get access to our archive editions dating back to 2007(CLICK ON THE TITLE BELOW TO SUBSCRIBE)