Monaghan and Longford duo take the Cork honours

Ryan Treanor and his Co. Longford driver Shane Dalton won the Cork Startrek Navigation Trial on Saturday night last. The event was the opening round of the 2024/25 Motorsport Ireland, National Navigation Trial Championship. The opening round was based out of Whitechurch Community Hall, North of Cork City.

Aaron O’Regan assisted by Patrick O’Sullivan and Nial Murphy organised an 80 mile event, taking in farm lanes and forestry tracks between Whitechurch and Killavullen. The first supplementary route instruction was received at TP2 for the location of Tp3. The trick here was that the approach and departure were not on the route instruction as it was included on the main route instructions hours earlier in the Community Hall. Tp3 was located on a farm lane in the townland of Island. From here, it was two more long Farm lanes, one of which included a river ford for Tp’s 4 and 5. After Tp6 it was into a farm in Ballyvorisheen West for all of Vias 7,8,9 and Tp10. As tough as this sounds with four checkpoints taking place within a few hundred yards, all crews were given a clear diagram of the route before the event began. Control 11 and Tp12 and Tp13 were all on public roads before in was back to forestry lanes in Knockacullata for the way to Tp14 and Tp15. The first relaxed section of the night took place between Tp16 and Tp17. The Departure of Tp17 brought competitors into Nagles Mountains for Timepoints 18 through 25. Oisín Sherlock was navigating for local man Jack Long. Their event came to a premature end here as they would slide off the muddy lane after leaving Tp18. Although a recovery jeep tried to pull them back onto the lane, the track was too narrow and overgrown to allow the correct angle to tow from. They did get out with the help of five people pulling the car up with ropes almost three hours later, but by that time the event was well over. The Speed Regulation Section took place between Tp27 and Tp29. During this section competitors must do a set average speed, with penalties being received for every 10s too fast or slow. The average speed in this case was exactly 50kph. At the end of this section (Tp29) another route instruction was received for the route to and including the location of Tp30. This route instruction was in the form of a herringbone tulip diagram with intermediate distances from each junction, with a note to ignore all closed gates and taped off openings.  Tp30 was back in Nagles Mountain as was Tp31, Via32 and Tp33. The event then moved back toward the farm where Tp3 had been located as the final supplementary route instruction was gave out there for the departure of Tp38 and the location of and approach/departures of Via39, Via40, Tp41 and Tp42. As with the Via’s and Tp10 earlier, Tp38, V39, V40, Tp41 and Tp42 were all located in the one farm so a diagram of the farm was received as the supplementary instruction had to be followed correctly. From Tp42 it was a short trip over the road to the penultimate Control before heading to the Final Control back in the Community Hall. When results were totted up, it was an outright win for Ryan Treanor/Shane Dalton who were down six marks for lateness. They were two marks the better of 2^nd placed Patrick Corcoran/Patsy McDonagh. Greg Shinnors/Andy Mackarel finished 3^rd overall on 10 marks. Shane Maguire navigated Owen Murphy to 6^th OA. Evin Hughes/Pakie Duffy finished 7^th OA. Gretchen and Martin Swinburne finished 8^th OA and 1^st in the Semi-Expert Class. Oisín Sherlock failed to finish the event.