Cork Motor Club hosted the 4th Round of the National Navigation Championship last weekend. The ‘1000 Shakes’ event which was also the final round of the Munster Navigation Championship was based out of Shanballymore Community Hall. Ken Carmody along with James Fitzgerald organised an 85 mile event over the vast area of forestry in the Ballyhoura Mountains. Tydavnet man Ryan Treanor fresh off his win on the previous round in Newcestown flew home from Amsterdam especially for the event and was the top Monaghan finisher, completing the event in 5th overall. The event began at 22:01 where 19 crews left headquarters and straight to the forestry tracks at Coolfree Mountain. Time points 2 to TP6 including Via1 and the plot and bash Via2 all took place in the vicinity. Drivers had to be on the ball as the quick succession of lanes and stops left it difficult for competitors to avoid dropping time especially when patches of fog began to appear. From TP6 to TP7 competitors got bit of a respite as the route was back on smooth public road. However, this was short lived as it was immediately back into the woods at Glenanaar Forest. TP8 was the first proper trick of the night, where a lane not on the map and the most obvious to take invited crews into the time point with a wrong approach. This trick would catch out five crews including Stranooden’s Ryan Farrell navigating for Ray O’Neill.
After departing TP8 another lane not appearing on the map caused difficulty as anyone missing the right hand turn on the mapped lane went off the map and continued down a non goer. This lane caught out Monaghan’s Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan with them dropping 4 minutes, Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan dropping 3 and O’Neill/Farrell dropping 5 minutes. Four other crews also drop time here. Limerick’s Patsy McDonagh with Sligo’s Patrick Corcoran on the maps unfortunately got stuck at the end of the lane in the 2wd Colt, but luckily for them Cork’s Brian O’Mahony/Amy Gallwey also came down the non goer and were able to tow the Colt to safety. Drama was to occur on P&B TP 11, a narrow bumpy road goes had to be used to avoid a wrong approach and it was on this road goes that Carbin/Mohan would take a wrong turn and leave them beached on a bank with the two passenger wheels off the ground, luckily Mackarel/Boylan would stop and pull them back to level ground. The same was to happen to O’Neill/Farrell. Unfortunately, they had to wait on the recovery jeep resulting in them having to skip a large part of the event to get back on time. From here it was through the famous river crossing on the Bregoge River and into the first relax section of the night at Control 14A. After a tough start, there was three joint leaders, Derek Butler/Denis O’Donovan, Monaghan’s Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock and Alan Shinnors/George Shinnors all dropping identical times on TP11 andTP12 to have 3 marks on the first sheet.
From the Relax section it was straight into the ITC. There was to be a sting in the tail at the end of the ITC as any crew who pulled up to the TP was given the arrival time and not the time the competitors asked for. At least eleven crews received early penalties here in what was a disappointing start to the middle third of the event. It was back into the forestry again at Ballynaboola and Caroline Mountain. Here competitors received a trace diagram for TP17 leading to a great section of driving through the entireforestry down to Control 19 and the second relax section which was in the same location as Con14A. The leader board was a lot different from the previous relax, as now the Limerick/Cork pairing of Garrett Collins/Aaron O’Regan were out in front on 4 marks. Mike O’Conor/Greg Shinnors were now 2nd on 5 marks with Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock and Alan Shinnors/George Shinnors joint 3rd on 7 marks, having both received 4 penalties for being early at the end of the ITC. After this second relax section, it was back into the Ballynaboola forestry where three P&Bs awaited. Grid references were handed out for TP22, and T23. It was at TP23 that caused the most problems as both Kelly/Sherlock and Mackarel/Boylan were unable to find the entrance to the lane and subsequently missed it and took an unmapped lane beside it and luckily landed into P&B TP24. The crews were lucky to get TP24 as the tulip to get to it was handed out at TP23. Carbin/Mohan fared out worse as they missed TP24 to TP26 and received 60 penalties in the process.
The Navigation then moved into the Carron, Black Rock and Long Mountain’s as the event neared its finish. Kelly/Sherlock would drop 4 minutes into TP29 after mistakenly heading down an unmapped lane to a dead end. They would drop a further 3 minutes into TP30 as a result of breaking the exhaust while crossing a drain along the way. The final three time points were back in the Coolfree Mountain where the event began and when competitors arrived at TP36 they could breathe a sigh of relief to be finished a very demanding event on man and machine. At the finish, three crews were joint leaders with Derek Butler/ Denis O’Donovan, Mike O’Connor/Greg Shinnors and Garrett Collins/Aaron O’Regan all finishing on 10 marks., For the second event in a row, tiebreakers were needed to declare the winners. Collins/O’Regan were declared winners on the Semi-Expert beats Expert rule. Butler/O’Donovan finished 2nd with O’Connor/Shinnors finishing 3rd. Derek Mackarel/Conor Boylan finished 6th overall with Darragh Kelly/Oisín Sherlock finishing 7th. Shane Dalton/Ryan Treanor finished 5th overall and 1st Semi-Expert while Michael Carbin/Conor Mohan finishing 10th overall and 3rd Semi-Expert. Ray O’Neill/Ryan Farrell finished 12th overall and 2nd Novice.
