Rory Kennedy
By Ciaran O’Donnell
Still going.
41 years after he first sat in a rally car alongside his late father, Jim, Rory Kennedy is still on the pace. On Sunday evening under a strong September sun in Northern France, the Letterkenny co-driver partnered Garry Jennings to victory in the 41st Rallye du Béthunois – the latest round of the French Tarmac Championship.
He’s still enjoying his rallying. That he’s still winning makes it all the more rewarding. Being first is what he’s always been about and the turning hands of time certainly haven’t repressed his desire to be the part of the crew that corks the bubbly from the bonnet. He remains a student of the go-hard-or-go-home school, despite graduating with profound success many terms ago.
“Enjoying it is the most important thing, obviously. And winning makes it very, very sweet,” says Ireland’s most successful co-driver of all time who can never get enough of the winner’s enclosure.
Back in June, himself and his Fermanagh-born driver were sitting second at the half way point. They began the Saturday 22 seconds adrift, but after four of the eight stages, that gap had been narrowed to 7.9 seconds. An epic ding-dong between themselves and the defending champions looked on the cards. However, it was curtains on stage 11 when their car ended up in a field over Gartan.
“We beat ourselves in the end up,” Rory comments.
“Manus Kelly went on to win the rally and fair play to him and Donall, they deserved it. We were in a position to push and win that rally. We made a mistake and crashed. The reason we went to France was because we crashed out of Donegal and ruled ourselves out of a few subsequent rallies.”
Their Subaru Impreza WRC wasn’t eligible for last month’s Ulster Rally because the championships are for R5s and not WRCs. The organisers in France approached Rory last year about travelling over and competing and it nearly happy. When the organisers came back this year, the duo jumped at the opportunity to have a go at something different, and pit themselves against different teams over unfamiliar territory.
Stéphane Lefebvre, who drives in the world championships with Kris Meeke and Craig Breen, is from the Northern France and started the event as the number one seed. The Donegal/Fermanagh combination rolled off the ramp number four.
Lefebvre cut loose on stage one and was quickest by 14 seconds, with Peter Taylor from England less than a second ahead of the chasing Irish in third. Lefebvre’s lead was short-lived as he retired on stage two. At the end of the second stage, Taylor’s led by the minimum. When he broke down on stage three, Jennings and Kennedy went ahead and stayed there until the last of the 12 stages, despite the best efforts of a number of French and Belgian crews.
On Sunday evening, when the fanfare had died down and the heart rate began to drop to normal, Rory found himself alone with his thoughts on the plane home. Days of past glories with the late, great, Bertie Fisher, must surely have fleeted by in those quieter moments.
“I was thinking to myself ‘you know what, this is a great sport’. There’s nothing I enjoy more that this,” he enthuses.
“The fact that I’m running half-marathons and competing in adventure races enables me to keep in shape to rally. You need the fitness to be able to compete at the top level,” adds Rory, whose last victory with Garry came in the Manx Rally last November.
The plan for the pair is to go back to France and compete in the next round of the tarmac championship at the end of the month. While the French didn’t really know what to make of the travelling Irish crew with the Transit van at the outset, they knew exactly what they were about half way through day one.
“The cameras were all around us then,” Rory says with a laugh.
“Garry is nuts and they all love him out there. He really played to the crowd and drove the car sliding around the corners.”
His driver cuts something of a charismatic figure on the motorsport circuit and he had the French hanging on his every word.
“In the pubs everyone knew Garry with the long hair. Everyone wanted their photo taken with them, wanted to buy him a drink and wanted to get his autograph. The whole thing was just class.”
Still going. Still winning.
Still smiling.
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