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Monaghan Motor Club held their annual awards night on Friday last in the Four Seasons Hotel Monaghan. Special Guests on the night ware Alan Carmichael and Eamonn Kelly. Alan Carmichael drove Arthur Kierans to his third British Rally Championship title, this year in the National Section. Arthur previously won the R2 and the Outright championship with Daniel McKenna in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Eamonn Kelly drove Conor Mohan to their maiden BRC win, taking victory in the Junior category. The drivers spoke highly of their navigators, and thanked them for their help and experience all season. The perpetual cups for the Ronnie Hawe Stages Rally were presented. Josh Moffett and Jason McKenna won the Maguire International Cup for being the highest club finisher on the day. The Keenan Stainless Steel Cup was presented to Dessie Keenen and Enda Sherry for being the highest club finishers in class 14. The Squealing Pig cup went to Justin Smith and Gregory McQuillan who were the best club members in the 2 litre class. Anthony Hand and Ryan Farrell were presented with the JG Kelly Supplies cup for being the top club finishers in the 1.6 litre class. Gary Cassidy and Bradley Maguire received the CombiLift Cup for being the best club members in class 16.  Shane and Paul Maguire received the McElvaney Cup for being the highest placed club members in Group N.

There were joint winners of the Ladies award as both Emer McGlone and Gretchen Swinburne could not be separated in the Traders Championship.

In the Gary Nesbitt Club Navigation Championship, Michael Tynan and Conor Mohan were overall winners. 1^st in Beginner went to Elijah Dixon and Marco Lennon. 1^st Novice went to Aidan Keenan and Sean Marron. Eoghan Corr and Shane Maguire finished 1^st Semi-Expert and Derek Mackarel and Conor Boylan finished 1^st Expert.

Finally at the end of the night it was the big one, the club Traders Trophy. This highly sought after cup went to all star Derek Mackarel. Derek took the honours on the very last round of the championship at Cavan Motor Club’s autocross by a single point from Conor Boylan. A very emotional Derek gave a lovely speech in which he thanked his family for the support all year, Conor Boylan for navigating for him throughout the season and the COC’s and landowners. Derek is the third Mackarel to win the award after his uncle George, mother Janice and father Andrew. He is also the cousin of another former winner, Ashley McAdoo.

Cavan Autocross

Josh and Sam Moffett took 8^th and 9^th overall respectively at Cavan Motor Club’s Autocross on Sunday last, round 2 of the Cootehill Precision Engineering Autocross Championship. The pair were double driving Sam’s Toyota Starlet on the loose surface track in Latton. After the best three of five timed runs were calculated, Josh finished the day with a 9 second advantage over Sam.

In the buggy class, Martin Connolly finished 2^nd OA, finishing less than 1s in arrears to overall winner Aaron Haslett. Paul Lennon finished 8^th OA and Conor Boylan on his second ever start in his new buggy finished 15^th OA.

PRO Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com

Defending National Navigation champion navigator, Tydavnet man Ryan Treanor along with his Longford driver Shane Dalton finished a solid 2^nd place overall on last weekend’s opening round of the 2022-23 National Navigation Championship. The pair finished the event on 12 marks and secured 16 points for the championship.

Inchigeelagh Co. Cork was the location of Round 1 with COC Aaron O’Regan assisted by Niall Murphy organising the first of two Cork Motor Club navigations this season.

The event began at 22:45, and disaster would immediately befall defending Drivers Champion Darragh Kelly with Oisín Sherlock navigating. Unfortunately, barely a kilometre into the event, they would clip a rock hidden in the undergrowth and severely damaged the passenger side wishbone in their Subaru and no matter how much wishing they did, the bone could not be repaired and early retirement followed. The first third of the event took place in the vicinity of villages, Tooms, Teerelton, and Kilmichael. Check points Via 8 and Timepoint 9 were accessed through farm lanes in the townland of Ballina and it was here that most crews dropped time due to the sheer slippiness of the cow tracks. Eventual winners and former national champions Derek Butler/Denis O’Donovan were almost caught out here, but some quick reactions from Derek made sure he kept his Impreza between the fence posts.

The first plot and bash of the night was handed out at TP 15 for TP’s 17 and 18. Navigators had to be very accurate with their directions as both plot and bash TPs were close by and wrong approaches would be very easily picked up due to the amount of information already on the map as the event was passing through the same area later on.

The ITC section turned out to be the trickiest part of the night. The ITC was defined by grid references for some of the junctions along the route, unlike the commonly used box tulip diagram with every junction included. The ITC was also timed at 50kph unlike the normal 30mph. The most unfortunate here were the team of Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan who took the wrong direction at a junction and dropped 1:30s or in ITC terms, 9 marks. Only for this ‘easy to make mistake’ they may well have finished 2^nd OA. Butler/O’Donovan would also make a similar error and would drop 4 of their 5 marks on this section due to the difficulty and the very twisty roads.

The next p&b section was at TP39 with crews receiving plots for TP 40 and 41. The approach to TP40 was down a farm lane which brought competitors out directly opposite the Kilmichael Ambush Monument before heading to TP 41 in the same location as TP19 just south east of Kilmichael village.  This TP signalled the event returning to area used earlier and maps became very muddled as there were TP’s no matter where competitors turned. Via 42 was in the same location as TP 16. P&b TP 43 was in the same farm as TP 18 apart from having to take a different lane on the approach and p&b TP 44 was in the same location as TP 15. This was enough to give any experienced navigator a headache. Control 45 spelled the end of the rat race and navigators could breathe a sigh of relief that they survived a very demanding but enjoyable event.

So in the end it was Butler/O’Donovan who were winners on a total of five marks, Dalton/Treanor finished 2^nd OA and 1^st  Expert on 12 marks and Gar Collins/Patrick O’Sullivan finished 3^rd OA on 14 marks. Carbin/Mohan would finish 4^th OA and 2^nd Expert on 15 marks. Aaron McElroy was super sub for Conor Boylan and he guided Derek Mackarel to 5^th OA and 1^st Novice on 16 marks. A small navigation error cost Derek and Aaron a better result as they were almost at a TP before Aaron, realizing he was approaching from the wrong direction and had to correct himself resulting in a few minutes dropped. They were also caught out on the exceptionally difficult ITC route like many others and most of their penalties came from there.

Round 2 of the National Navigation Championship takes place in Monaghan with the Drumlin Navigation taking place on Saturday November 12^th.

Awards Night

Monaghan Motor Club’s annual awards night takes place this Friday night (21^st) in the Four Seasons Hotel Monaghan at 8pm. Tickets are available from any committee member. Please come along and support our champions from last season.

PRO Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com

Monaghan Motor Club hosted the first Navigation Trial of the season last Saturday night. The event was the final round of the club Gary Nesbitt Navigation Trial Championship and the penultimate round of the club Traders Championship.  Local man Evin Hughes along with his Longford driver Pakie Duffy organised an 80 mile event based out of the Pearse Brothers GAA Centre and taking in the greater Ballybay area. 

 Creeve man Aidan Keenan along with Corrybracken navigator Sean Marron earned their first ever overall win after a very compact and challenging route. They negotiated the 80 miles dropping just 7 minutes. Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock finished 2^nd on 10 marks and Shane Dalton/Ryan Treanor finished in 3^rd place, also down 10 marks.

Due to the Drumhowan vs Clones Junior Championship game taking place, the Navigation did not begin until 10pm. From Time Point 1 at Ballintra graveyard approaching from the Ballybay-Castleblaney road, it was turn right and out to the Lough Egish road turn left and head for the first farm lane of the night at Edenanay for TP2. After departing the time point it was down into the farm yard and in and around the sheds to reach Via1. The departure from the Via was directly across the public road and down another farm lane before heading to TP3 on a loop of a farm at Cornahoe. TP3 was the first place where most competitors dropped time due to the demanding nature of the route up to this point. The route to TP4 brought crews back up to Ballintra graveyard. A strategically placed TP1 left that anybody not being careful would overshoot the left hand turn off and end up receiving a double visit back at the start.

TPs 4 and 5 took the event through Corbrack and Corrybrannan to TP6 in Dixon’s farm at Drumhillagh. From here it was into Treanor’s farm at Corkeeran for a loop around the shed to Tp7 before continuing out the back lane to reach TP8. Treanor’s lane would spell the early demise of local radio DJ Sean McCaffery and his driver Richard Cassidy as the gearbox in their Vauxhall Vectra decided it didn’t get a long enough summer vacation and ultimately packed it in. Car 2 on the road Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan (joint leaders of both the club Navigation and Traders Championships) almost followed Cassidy/McCaffery into retirement as the alternator in the Subaru Impreza broke causing the battery to die. Amazingly, while getting a tow back to HQ they spotted Car 1, Arthur Kierans/Conor Maguire stopped (engine) so they robbed their alternator and after some quick repairs, they were able to rejoin the event at Control B.  A herringbone tulip plot & bash was handed out at TP13 for Tp14 and Via3, however anybody who immediately followed the tulip would forget about the pre plotted Via2 at Creeve and head instead for TP14. A total of four crews would make this mistake. TP14 was in Keenan’s farm, also in the townland of Creeve before continuing the tulip down to the road island at Agheralane to get a very well hidden Via3. At Via3 another plot & bash was issued which brought competitors to TP15. The difficulty of this section was evident from the number of competitors that completely missed one or more checkpoints.

TP16 and 17 were located on a farm at Carrickinare before heading up a long slippy and overgrown grey lane and turning right to the visit the midpoint Control back in the same farm and location of Via1. From the Control it was a short road section loop before once again traversing the long grey lane at Carrickinare and turning left to reach TP18 and 19 for the second relaxed section of the night. TP18 was very well placed to catch out any ‘sleeping’ navigator as after leaving TP17 it was very easy to forget about the Control and arrive at the relaxed section. In fact, many competitors were spotted reversing away from TP18 to head for the Control as failure to reach this Checkpoint would signify a very unfortunate exclusion. At the halfway mark, the event leaders were Martin Tynan/David McCrudden having a furthest cleanest tiebreak advantage over Keenan/Marron as both crews were down 5 marks.

TP19 signified the beginning of the ITC route and this brought the event into new area just north of the Ballybay-Doohamlat road. More plot and bash was issued at TP22 at Cremartin for the location of TP23, whose approach was down another challenging farm lane at Dunfelimy. At TP23 a trace diagram was handed out. Unconventionally, navigators had to plot the trace backwards from TP25 to discover the location of TP24. Tynan/McCrudden would drop out of contention for the win here as they lost 7 minutes trying to figure out the difficult trace diagram. Unfortunately, Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan would pick up a wrong approach at this location, dropping them 15 marks. From TP25 at Corfinlough it was a straight forward route to the final control back in the Pearse Brothers GAA centre, signalling an end to a demanding but very enjoyable night’s sport.

At the end it was the Novice pair of Keenan/Marron who came out on top with a famous win beating all the seasoned Experts and dropping just two marks on the entire second half of the event. There were tiebreakers for 2^nd,3^rd and 4^th OA as three crews all finished on 10 marks. Kelly/Sherlock got 2^nd with a further cleanest tiebreak over Dalton/Treanor, who in turn got a further cleanest tiebreak over Michael Tynan/Ciaran Tynan. Michael and Ciaran were quite unfortunate, as they discovered a minor electrical problem in their car when leaving HQ causing them to arrive one minute late to the first Time Point.

In the classes, it was Kelly/Sherlock 1st Expert, Dalton/Treanor 2nd and Michael Tynan/Ciaran Tynan 3rd.

 Semi-Expert was won by Damien Treanor/Christopher McMahon on 49 marks, 2nd was Garrett Collins/Patrick O’Sullivan on 53m and 3rd was Gary Cassidy/Killian McArdle on 132m.

Ray O’Neill/Ryan Farrell were comfortable winners in the Novice class finishing on 20m, 2nd was Kieran McCarra/Aaron McElroy on 45m and 3rd was Mickey Conlon/Paul McPhillips finishing on 108m.

In the beginner class, Ballybay men Elijah Dixon/Marco Lennon once again stormed to victory and also finished an excellent 5th OA on 12m. 2nd in class went to Ciaran Duffy/Pauric Duffy on 42m and 3rd went to  Shane Maguire/Ciaran Maguire who finished on 99m.

Evin thanked Doohamlat Motors for providing an excellent scrutiny venue, the Pearse Brothers GAA for the top notch HQ and all the landowners and residents along the route for their continued support of the events, many of whom stood out to the early hours for to take in the spectacle of the navigation event. He also thanked all the marshals who assisted in the running of the trial, especially the ones who travelled from other counties to help out.

The first round of the National Navigation Championship’s takes place in Cork on Saturday the 15^th October. CoC Aaron O’Regan has organised an 80 mile event based out of the west Cork village of Inchegeelagh. Regulations and entry are available now. The next Monaghan Navigation will take place on Saturday the 12^th of November.

Top 10 Results:

1st Aidan Keenan/Sean Marron (Subaru Impreza) 7m,

2nd Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock (Subaru Impreza) 10m,

3rd Shane Dalton/Ryan Treanor (Subaru Impreza) 10m,

4th Michael Tynan/Ciaran Tynan (Subaru Impreza) 10m,

5th Elijah Dixon/Marco Lennon (Subaru Impreza) 12m,

6th Shane Farrell/James McCabe (Subaru Impreza) 12m,

7th Martin Tynan/David McCrudden (Subaru Impreza) 15m,

8th Ray O’Neill/Ryan Farrell (Subaru Impreza) 20m,

9th Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan (Ford Focus) 27m,

10th Ciaran Duffy/Pauric Duffy (Subaru Impreza) 42m.

Birr Endurance

Emmett Sherry/Alecia Knox finished 2^nd OA on last Sunday’s Birr Endurance Trial, the final round of the 2022 Coffee Perfection Endurance Championship. The pair finished the sixteen selective event 1:04 seconds in arrears of winners Robert Howard/Claire Murtagh. Championship leaders Andrew Wedlock along with Ciaran Maguire finished the day in 3^rd OA. They actually finished on the same overall time as Sherry/Knox, but were relegated to 3^rd due to Sherry/Knox setting a faster time on selective 1. Jack McKenna/Megan Sullivan finished the day in 13^th OA and 2^nd class A2M. Imants Ignatjevs/Luiza Ieremie finished 23^rd OA and 2^nd class 2.

Awards Night

The Monaghan Motor Club awards night will take place on Friday the 21^st October in the Four Seasons Hotel. More information later.

PRO: Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com

Kaine Treanor guided Chris O’Callaghan to 3rd place overall at the GSMC Mini-
Stages rally last Sunday. The pair finished 22.5 seconds down on winners Ryan
Loughran/Paddy McCrudden. Richard Moffett/Johnny Baird finished in 4 th OA
and 1 st class 14. Johno Doogan/Paul Lennon finished 6 th OA and 2 nd class 14.
Piaras O’Ceallachain navigated Brian Lavelle to 12 th OA and 1 st class 13. Josh
Moffett took brother Sam’s Toyota Starlet for a spin and finished 14 th OA and
2 nd class 13 with Andy Hayes on the notes. Raymond Conlon/Paul Sheridan
finished 15 th OA and 3 rd class 13. Maurice Moffett made his long awaited return
to rallying, he alongside Jason McKenna finished 16 th OA and 8 th class 14. Jack
Maguire/Keith McConnon finished 28 th OA and 1 st class 11F. Barry
McKenna/Raymond Knox finished 31 st OA and 9 th class 13. Oisín Sherlock
guided Anthony O’Brien to 53 rd OA and 5 th class 11R.
James McEneaney navigating for Marty Toner retired after SS2 with a throttle
sensor issue in their BMW. Paddy O’Reilly/David Fitzsimons retired on SS2 after
a minor off road excursion.

Monaghan Navigation Trial

The new navigation season is fast approaching. Evin Hughes and Pakie Duffy
have took on the role of organising the first event which will be the final round
of the club Navigation Championship and the penultimate round of the Traders

Championship. The Navigation will take place this Saturday 1st October and
will be based out of the Pearse Bros GAA Centre, Ballybay. The event will be 80
miles approximately. Please note some minor changes to the regulations since
publication. Sign on will now take place at 7pm, Route Card 1 at 7:30pm, and
first car away at 10:01pm. As ever, plenty of marshals will be needed for the
running of the event, so anyone available to marshal are asked to let the
Motor Club or Evin know as soon as possible.
Cavan Autocross

The final round of the club Traders Championship will take place on Sunday
October 2 nd in Latton Quarry. The event is organised by Cavan Motor Club.

PRO: Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com

Ballinode man Conor Mohan and Aghabog man Arthur Kierans secured their respective British Rally Championship titles on this weekends Trackrod Rally Yorkshire. Arthur Kierans alongside Alan Carmichael secured the National title thanks to another class win over the six gravel stages of the Yorkshire forests. Having missed the opening round, dominant displays on each round following, they have secured the title with one event to spare. Conor Mohan had a nerve-wracking few weeks as his Donegal driver Eamonn Kelly had secured his drivers title on the previous round, the ‘Get Connected Rali Bae Ceredigion’, Eamonn determined to make sure Conor got the title he fully deserved, put his boot to the board and won the Junior section outright and claimed their 4th outright win in a row and 5th win in this years championship. With one round still to take place, Conor cannot be beaten. Having secured the Junior BRC tiles, the only challenge left for Eamonn over the 2022 season  is to get his Ewrc profile picture updated… Congratulations all.
PRO Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com