Well, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to 2009 with a win on the Sean Conlon Memorial rally. It was my first outright win on a round of the National Forestry Championship, and I was absolutely delighted to come off that final stage to find out that I had got the win.  I had come close on a number of occasions in 2007 when I competed in the full Championship so to finally get a win in an Irish Forestry Rally was brilliant.

The first stage of the rally was cancelled due to the very icy conditions therefore the first stage we got to do in anger was stage 2. We took a cautious approach, as there was still a lot of ice and snow in places, which made it very treacherous. Everyone else adopted the same tactics and we were second fastest on the stage.

Stage three was next, and although there was still some snow in places the level of grip throughout the stage was pretty consistent and we were fastest on the stage and we went into the lead of the rally. We were fastest again on stage 4 and second fastest on stage 5, so we entered the last stage with a 13 second lead over Trevor Harding. With Trevor this close, we didn’t want to leave anything to chance so we really went for it on that last stage. We managed to take 22 seconds off Trevor on the stage and win the rally by 35 seconds, but one overshoot or any small slip and it could have been a different story.

Finally, I just want to thank Greg, Colm and all the team for doing a great job all day.