This year’s Student Sport Ireland Karting Championship concluded on Thursday March 13th with a double of success for the Dublin City University crew, as Shane Murphy collected his first ever drivers title and DCU collected their second team championship in a row.
Coming into the final round of the championship only seven points separated the top four drivers in the championship with previous winners Roisin Sweeney (SETU Carlow) and Patrick Farrell (Dundalk IT), in close battle with Murphy and Rory O’Shea from MTU Cork.

All four drivers qualified in the top 16 in the heats so the tension continued into the semi-finals, with Roisin and Shane in semi-final 1, and it was advantage to Roisin following this as she won her semi-final and Shane came home in 3rd place. The second semi-final was full of drama as it had to be re-run after an error on the final lap, the re run meant that Patrick and Rory could both only reach the final after finishing 4th and 3rd in their semi-final.

In the final an explosive start from Shane Murphy meant he picked up 1st spot on the opening lap and with near flawless driving from there he went from start to finish in 1st spot and by winning his first race of the four round championship he took the title on 83 points overall. Roisin Sweeney finished 4th in the final and fourth overall on 69 points, Rory O’Shea finished 3rd over all on 70 points, while second place belonged to Patrick Farrell on 73 points.

Dublin City University’s team of Shane Murphy, Sean Purcell, Aaron Ingram, Eoin Smithers and Michael Hegarty collected the team championship on 228 points, second overall were Technological University Dublin on 165 and third place went to Munster Technological University Cork on 153.