Martin Tynan & Fintan Clerkin took overall victory on last weekend’s Drumlin Navigation Trial, Round 1 of the 2020 Traders Trophy Club Championship. After a demanding but enjoyable 110 mile route the pair were four penalties clear of the opposition to secure their first Drumlin win.
COC Ciaran Tynan brought the event from Newbliss into neighbouring Cavan for a significant portion of the event with a petrol halt in Drung. An entry of 30 crews started the event including 17 Expert & Semi-Expert crews many of whom had travelled from Cork with the event being a National Championship round. Top seeds were September event winners Aiden Sherry & Oisin Sherlock. Heavy rain in the lead-up to the event resulted in some late changes to the route and made road conditions treacherous in places and drivers were made well aware of this at Driver’s briefing.
The opening section of the event took crews towards Aghabog via an SRS section with a new lane at Aghadrumkeen. A plot & bash section near Dartrey village included a trace diagram and nearly all crews dropped time on this section. Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan were leading on a clean sheet with the Beginner crew of Damien Hagan/Ryan Farrell a sensational 2nd on 1 penalty. Two long farm tracks near Drum proved very wet and slippy as crews crossed the border into Cavan with some classic lanes near Drung bringing crews into the halfway halt.
Mackarel/Boylan were still in the lead on a total of 3 penalties closely followed by Cork’s Owen Murphy/Daire Hayes (4 pens). The Novice pairing of Emmet Sherry/Patrick Corcoran were on a charge and held 3rd place on 5 penalties despite the disadvantage of two-wheel drive. Martin Tynan/Fintan Clerkin and Aiden Sherry/Oisin Sherlock were both on 6 penalties and well in contention.
The event continued to flirt the Cavan-Monaghan border including some classic lanes at Lisboduff, Bunnoe, Hall’s Yard and Knocks Lane. By TP28, Mackarel/Boylan (3 pens) led from Murphy/Hayes (4 pens), Sherry/Corcoran (6 pens), Tynan/Clerkin (6 pens) & Sherry/Sherlock (7 pens). The sting in the tail would be the final section south of Newbliss which incorporated plot & bash timepoints. First to fall foul were Mackarel/Boylan who picked up a 50 penalty for an early clock in at TP31. Via9, TP32 and TP34 incorporated tulip diagrams which caught out a number of crews.
Murphy/Hayes hopes came to an end with a wrong departure from TP33 which was followed by a wrong approach at TP34. Tynan/Clerkin put in an impressive performance to drop just 3 penalties through this section and climb into the lead. Sherry/Corcoran kept their cool dropping 6 penalties for a total of 16 penalties to clinch 2nd overall and class honours. Despite an earlier wrong approach Cork’s James Fitzgerald/Ken Carmody profited from the mistakes of others and climbed back up to 3rd place on 28 penalties total. The top five were completed by Semi-Expert class winners, Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan (30 penalties) and Pakie Duffy/Evin Hughes (31 penalties).
Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan had a strong run to take Semi-Expert class honours despite a late wrong approach at TP34. Damien Treanor/Christopher McMahon (37 penalties) were 2nd with Andrew Mackarel/Richard Cassidy, who returned to the navigator’s seat after many years away, taking 3rd on 73 penalties with an early arrival costing them class honours.
Sherry/Corcoran were the stars of the Novice class taking a comfortable win. Aiden Keenan/Sean Marron took 2nd with Adam Montgomery/Andrew Hamilton in 3rd. One of the performances of the night was that of Damien Hagan/Ryan Farrell who took Beginners class honours and 7th overall on just 35 penalties total. Michael Conlon/Paul McPhillips were nearly 100 penalties behind in 2nd with 3rd in class going to Shane Maguire/Pauric Duffy.
COC Ciaran Tynan paid thanks to all the landowners and residents along the route for their support. He also paid thanks to all at the Acorn Centre in Newbliss, the marshals and results team and also to Cavan Motor Club for their support of the event.
The next club event will take place on January 18th/19th with the January Navigation Trial. In the meantime, the Navigation seasons continues with the Midland Navigation Trial on November 23rd/24th.
Top 10 Results:
1st Martin Tynan/Fintan Clerkin (Subaru Impreza) 12 pens,
2nd Emmet Sherry/Patrick Corcoran (Toyota Starlet) 16 pens,
3rd James Fitzgerald/Ken Carmody (Subaru Impreza) 28 pens,
4th Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan (Subaru Impreza) 30 pens,
5th Pakie Duffy/Evin Hughes (Subaru Impreza) 31 pens,
6th Aiden Sherry/Oisin Sherlock (Subaru Impreza) 33 pens,
7th Damian Hagan/Ryan Farrell (Subaru Impreza) 35 pens,
8th Damien Treanor/Christopher McMahon (Subaru Impreza) 37 pens,
9th Trevor O’Callaghan/Patrick O’Leary (Subaru Impreza) 39 pens,
10th Owen Murphy/Daire Hayes (Subaru Impreza) 40 pens
11th Aiden Keenan/Sean Marron (Subaru Impreza) 56 pens,
12th Andrew Mackarel/Richard Cassidy (Vauxhall Vectra) 73 pens
Moffett Wins in Scotland
Josh Moffett & Andy Hayes secured overall victory on last weekend’s Jim Clark Memorial Rally in Scotland. The pair were debuting a new Ford Fiesta R5 Mk2 and duly claimed overall honours on the all tarmac event. The rally was being run for the first time in several years and consisted of 13 stages over two days. The pair held off the challenge of David Bogie in his Mk2 Escort to take the event win and cap off a memorable year after their National Rally Championship success.
County Monaghan Motor Club 