THE Carbery Navigation Trial, organised by the Skibbereen and District Car Club, was won by Ovens driver Owen Murphy and his Donoughmore navigator Patrick O'Sullivan.

On board their Subaru Impreza, they were the only crew to finish with single figure penalties on the event, a counting round of the

Motorsport Ireland National and Munster Navigation Championships.

Traversing the 75-mile event around tricky terrain in Gaggan, Timoleague, Kilbrittain and Bandon, they finished with six penalties.

Their closest rivals, Mallow's Derek Butler and Aaron O'Regan, the latter with strong West Cork connections, and also in a Subaru Impreza, finished second on ten penalties.

For the Longford/Monaghan crew of Pakie Duffy/Evin Hughes (Subaru Impreza), the pre-event national championship leaders, the long journey south paid dividends. They took third place, a result that saw them extend their lead of the national series.

Unfortunately, for their closest rivals prior to the event – James Fitzgerald (Mogeely) and Ken Carmody (Ballincollig) – things didn't go according to plan. An unsigned time card cost them 20 penalties and dropped them from third to sixth, and virtually ended their national championship aspirations.

Bandon's David Beamish and Crookstown's Chris Brady took their Ford Focus to victory in the Novice category. Unfortunately there were no entries in the Beginners category despite the efforts of the Skibbereen club in hosting several classes in recent times. Indeed, this spectrum of the sport is flagging in the county and reflected by the entry that was well down on that of the previous round in Monaghan.

By TP5 (near Skeaf) all the 16 crews had incurred a penalty with Butler/O'Regan the last of one of four crews to lose the prospect of a clean sheet. At TP4 to the west of Crossmahon, Murphy/O'Sullivan dropped time and they too collected another penalty at Skeaf.

However, from there on along with Butler/O'Regan and the Clare/Sligo crew of Patsy McDonagh/Patrick Corcoran they remained on two penalties. By TP27, close to Kildarra (east of Bandon) Murphy/O'Sullivan had the outright lead.

There was a sting in the tail at the Connolly farm complex and at the Beamish premises where penalties abounded. Murphy/O'Sullivan went on to claim what was the former's first navigation victory in six years.

Murphy said ‘It all went really well. Patrick (O'Sullivan) was superb on the maps all night. It was tricky in places, especially in Beamish's. We were fifth on the road and by that time, the lads ahead had figured out the intricacies of which way to go and I think we benefitted from that. It probably helped us.'

Butler/O'Regan, like many others, incurred the majority of their penalties at Connolly's farm complex.

Results: 1. O. Murphy/P. O'Sullivan (Subaru Impreza) 6 penalties; 2. D. Butler/A. O'Regan, (Subaru Impreza) 11 pens; 3. P. Duffy/E. Hughes (Subaru Impreza) 21 pens; 4. R. O'Neill/S. O'Neill (Subaru Impreza) 22 pens; 5. P. McDonagh/ P. Corcoran (Subaru Impreza) 44 pens; 6. J. Fitzgerald/K. Carmody (Subaru Impreza) 35 pens; 7. T. O'Callaghan/P. O'Leary (Subaru Impreza) 43 pens; 8. A. Mackarel/G. Shinnors (Subaru Impreza) 53 pens; 9. D. Beamish/C. Brady (Ford Focus) 55 penalties; 10. T. O'Keefe/D. O'Donoghue (Honda Civic) 86pens.