Last Saturday marked the final round of the National and Border Trial Championships. Just like the previous round, Michael Tynan with nephew Ciaran Tynan on the map emerged victorious after one of the most demanding events in recent times. They negotiated the eighty mile event dropping only 19 minutes and finished well ahead of Martin Tynan/Fintan Clerkin in 2 nd place. Andrew Mackarel made his long awaited return, filling in for his son Derek, to steer Conor Boylan to 3 rd place overall. Before the event began, all eyes were on the leader board of the National Navigation Championship. Remarkably going into the last round, no less than six crews had the chance of the overall win. The current leaders were both Monaghan men. Despite not being team mates Darragh Kelly led the drivers championship and Conor Mohan led the navigators championship when dropped scores were taken into account. As nine o’clock grew nearer, nerves began to creep into the championship contenders as they knew this was their last chance to tip the overall honours in their favour. The event organised by new Clerk of the Course Ben McIntyre ably assisted by Andrew and Thomas Wedlock was based out of Tullyvin Community Centre. From time point one it was into the first farm lane of the night opposite Kill National School to receive the correct approach to Tp2. From there it was into a new lane at Aghnaglogh and across a few bumpy fields to arrive at Tp3. Unfortunately, Michael Carbin and Conor Mohan’s championship push came to an abrupt end here, failing to make it to the Time Point. The first real challenge of the event came at Tp5 in the famous grounds of the
wind turbines just north of Mountain Lodge. A very difficult to find overgrown lane led up to the time point and this resulted in a total of fourteen cars completely missing the lane and landing at Tp6 by mistake.
The main casualties here were three of the championship contenders. Mackarel/Boylan, Derek Butler/Denis O’Donovan and James Fitzgerald/Ken Carmody all missed the lane to put a big dent in their hopes. There was no let up as at Tp6 a herringbone tulip plot and bash was handed out to bring competitors to Tp7, Via1 and Tp8. The tulip was extremely difficult with a total of 54 junctions appearing on it. The tulip brought crews up into the turbines beside the Mountain Lodge reservoir. Navigators had to be clued in, as the quick succession of junctions left it very easy to get wrong approaches and double visits, as the tulip brought competitors back into the vicinity of TP7 when bringing them to Via1. Ciaran Tynan was fortunate to get away with dropping just eight minutes through this section as he accidently reset his tripmeter which left him having to calculate the intermediate distances as the tulip read in cumulative. Most of the expert crews did get through this section without much drama apart from dropping time. Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock got through the three p&bs dropping only four minutes to go into the lead of the event and go from seventh on the road to second with only Fitzgerald/Carmody in front. Kelly/Sherlock would continue to lead the event until TP13 at Cran, just outside Maudabawn where they missed a left turn on a road goes and received a wrong approach. Plot and bash was again handed out at Tp14, bringing crews yet again into another farm. Anyone not paying close attention to the tulip diagram would be met with a wrong approach by following the lane to the end. The correct route being turning left off the lane, up a field, into the farm yard and keep right around an old shed and down a cow lane. Ten crews were caught out here with a wrong approach. A newly reopened lane that hadn’t seen traffic in decades took competitors to Tp16. Fitzgerald/Carmody’s night would go from bad to worse as they slid off the lane and got stuck, resulting in them missing the following three time points and the ITC as they got towed out and tried to regain lost time. Kelly/Sherlock inherited being first car on the road, a position they would hold until the relax section at Tp29. A never before used lane at Rakane, just north of Kill was the location of Tp17 just before the midpoint control. At the midpoint Control, Tynan/Tynan were out in front on 12 penalties, 2 nd was championship contenders Shane Dalton/Ryan Treanor on 15 pens with Kelly/Sherlock 3 rd on 23 pens.
There was no let up in the second half as the lanes kept coming thick and fast. Another lane never used before brought the navigation up into the turbines at Lappanbane, where turning right led to Tp25 and left to Tp26. Tp25 was particularly hard to find as the lane was unmapped and competitors had to make sure to follow their tulip to not miss a hidden slot right to enter the lane the time point was located on. Tp30 would throw up a late sting in the tail as Kelly/Sherlock would receive awrong departure and double visit after heading out a dead end lane in
Wedlock Windows farmyard. At Tp32 the last p&b was handed out. This time it was two grid references for Tp33 and Tp34 that were located in a farm yard and a wind turbine lane at
Cornabeagh. These p&bs didn’t throw up much of a challenge for most of the expert crews as they mainly dropped time because of the short distances, getting caught in the dust of previous cars and stopping to get a stop sign signature three times. With the last p&b section finished, the event headed back through the lane and fields at Aghnaglogh to Tp36 before the final two
controls signalling the end of a fantastic event as well as the National and Squealing Pig Border Navigation Championships. With the event over and penalties added up it was Team Tynan once again who secured the overall win. Tynan/Clerkin finished on 35 pens to secure 2nd place and Mackarel/Boylan finished 3 rd on 49 pens. In the classes, Tynan/Clerkin finished 1 st Expert, Mackarel/Boylan finished 2nd and Kelly/Sherlock finished 3 rd on 74 pens. Dalton/Treanor won the Semi-Expert class finishing on 73 pens, Damien Treanor/Christopher McMahon secured 2 nd in class with 109 pens and 3 rd place went to Eoghan Corr/Shane Maguire on 120 pens. Kieran McCarra/Aaron McElroy won the Novice class despite an early puncture
and finished on 77 pens. In 2 nd were Sean McConnell/Anthony McDonald on 240 pens and in 3 rd was Cathal Sheridan/Ryan Farrell on 255 pens. The Beginner class was once again won by Elijah Dixon/Marco Lennon, finishing on 232 pens. In 2 nd place was Pat Shields/John Kelly on 244 pens and in 3rd place was Abraham Dixon/Luke Connolly, finishing on 555 pens.
Amazingly, with Conor Boylan finishing 3 rd OA, Ryan Treanor finishing 4 th OA and Denis O’Donovan finishing 10 th OA it left the three of them tied for 1st place in the navigators championship. A tiebreaker was needed to decide the winner and it sided with Ryan Treanor on the Semi-Expert beats Expert rule. This was Ryan’s first National Championship win and he became the first Monaghan navigator to win the championship since Evin Hughes back in 2016/17. 2nd place went to reigning champion Denis O’Donovan as he had an overall win at the Skibbereen Carbery event. Conor Boylan finished in 3 rd place OA. Unfortunately, Conor Mohan had to settle for 4 th overall after his non finish in Cavan. He finished the championship tied with Oisín Sherlock, but beat Oisín on the Semi-Expert beats Expert rule also. Despite a very poor start to the championship (four points from the opening two rounds) Oisín recovered to
finish 5 th OA, just two points behind the winner. Indeed, he could have snatched the win on the last round if not for two navigational errors that dropped him from 1st to 5 th on the Cavan event. County Monaghan was well represented as four out of the top five all hail from the Farney county. In the drivers Championship, Darragh Kelly finished 1 st OA with one point to
spare over Derek Butler. Darragh secured the OA win thanks to a 14 point haul driving for Ryan Treanor in the Skibbereen Carbery event, before driving for Oisín Sherlock for the remainder of the season. 3 rd place went to Shane Dalton, Ryan Treanor’s driver from the 100 Isles event onwards. 4th place went to Michael Carbin. Carbin had been in 2 nd OA but dropped to 4th after the non- finish on the final round. 5 th went to Derek Mackarel as he had other commitments and was unable to start the Cavan event. He would have finished 3 rd OA otherwise.
The Squealing Pig Border Navigation Trial Championship points will be updated in the coming days.
