Skibbereen and District Car Club hosted the 3rd Round of the National Navigation Championship last weekend. The ‘100 Isles’ event which also doubled as the 2nd Round of the Munster Navigation Championship was based out of Newcestown Community Hall. Colm Feen along with Iarla McCarthy organised an 80 mile event over territory that had not seen Navigations in a number of years. Tydavnet man Ryan Treanor along with Longford’s Shane Dalton snatched the overall victory after a closely contested event in which a total of four crews finished on clean sheets. Ryan was the first Monaghan man to win the event since Michael Carbin and Evin Hughes won it in 2012. The event began at 23:01 where 22 crews took to the lanes in the hope of victory. There was no easy start as competitors had to negotiate two farm lanes, an underpass, a stop sign and a Via before reaching TP2, all in the space of four minutes. From there it was immediately onto another private lane on the approach to TP3 where a difficult to see track behind a shed half way down the lane caused confusion as competitors came to an apparent dead end, and it was here that Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan dropped a minute. Another Monaghan crew, Eoghan Corr/Shane Maguire would suffer worse as they would receive a Wrong Departure. The first plot and bash of the night came at TP11 where competitors received grid references in worded format for TP12, TP13 and Via4. Navigators had to be extra careful on the route to TP12 as if crews overshot a road on the left by even the smallest margin they would be met with a Wrong Approach or worse, a Double Visit. The Stranooden pairing of James McCabe/Shane Farrell unfortunately missed TP12 and went directly to TP13 dropping them 20 penalties. At the midpoint control only four crews were still on zero penalties, Cork’s Derek Butler/Denis O’Donovan, Monaghan’s Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock, Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan and the Longford/Monaghan team of Dalton/Treanor. The second half of the event was no easier as four more plot and bashes awaited comprising of a trace diagram and more grid references in worded format. Drama was to follow for Kelly/Sherlock as they would almost drop a minute at the very last timepoint as they found the lane momentarily blocked. Luckily a lengthy road section following this allowed them to make back lost time before arriving at the penultimate control.
With the same four crews still on clean sheets, tiebreakers were needed to declare the winners. With both Dalton/Treanor and Carbin/Mohan competing in the Semi-Expert class, this gave them the advantage over the Expert crews of Butler/O’Donovan and Kelly/Sherlock. However, another tie breaker was required to separate the two Semi-Experts and two Experts, this time on Engine cc’s. Dalton’s rare 1990cc engine took the win over Carbin’s slightly bigger 1996cc engine, while in the tiebreaker to separate the two Experts, Kelly’s 1994cc engine beat Butler’s 1995cc engine. With tiebreakers completed, Dalton and Treanor were declared victorious, securing their first ever victory in their first ever outing together. A slightly shocked Ryan gave a speech at the end and thanked the COC Colm Feen and his team on running a fantastic event and thanked all the residents and landowners for allowing the event to take place. 2nd Overall and 1st Semi-Expert went to Carbin and Mohan while 3rd Overall and 1st Expert went to Kelly and Sherlock making it a fantastic Monaghan one two three. Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan finished 3rd Expert while James McCabe/Shane Farrell finished 7th. Eoghan Corr/Shane Maguire finished 2nd Novice while Ray O’Neill/Ryan Farrell finished 4th.
Top 10 Results:
1st Shane Dalton/Ryan Treanor (Subaru Impreza) 0m,
2nd Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan (Subaru Impreza) 0m,
3rd Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock (Subaru Impreza) 0m,
4th Derek Butler/Denis O’Donovan (Subaru Impreza) 0m,
5th Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan (Subaru Impreza) 2m,
6th James Fitzgerald/Ken Carmody (Subaru Impreza) 3m,
7th Alan Shinnors/George Shinnors (Subaru Impreza) 4m,
8th Patsy McDonagh/Patrick Corcoran (Mitsubishi Colt) 6m,
9th Brian O’Mahony/Amy Gallwey (Subaru Impreza) 7m,
10th Mark Phelan/Patrick O’Leary (Subaru Impreza) 13m.
