kennedy was in the vanguard of a wave of 1970s irish international racing talent and became ireland's first winner of a british single seater championship when he won the rac and townsend thoresen formula ford 1600 championships in 1976 driving a crossle-minister 30f. he also finished a close second in the european ff1600 series that year. in 1977 he graduated to the factory supported afmp march european formula 3 team but the squad folded early in the year and kennedy soon switched to the small argo team, scoring a number of giant killing results with the jo marquart designed jm1 chassis.