A family affair for rising driver Cavanagh

Cloughjordan youngster William Cavanagh won the autocross national junior championship in 2025

By Thomas Conway

Flick on to the Motorsport Ireland website and one of the first sights that greets you is a dazzling image of a smiling Craig Breen, accompanied by a simple but enduring quote: “Life is too short. You have to have fun.”

Breen had assumed his place in the pantheon of Irish sporting greats long before he was taken from this world at the age of 33 in a tragic accident which shocked the country in 2023. His life was cruelly cut short, but his legacy lives on.

The Craig Breen Foundation provides indispensable financial support and assistance to young drivers attempting to forge a career in rally driving. Breen also helped to establish the autocross national junior championship.

In 2025, that very competition was won by a young driver from Cloughjordan, William Cavanagh. In many ways it is no coincidence that the 14-year-old junior cert student is taking the autocross world by storm.

His father, also William, is a talented driver himself, while his late grandfather, Billy, flourished behind the wheel, racking up six national senior championships in-a-row during his heyday in the late seventies.

To the uninitiated, autocross is a specific branch of motorsport which comes in two forms: grass-surface and loose-surface. Both are helter-skelter, pedal-to-the-metal events in which the driver shoots around a makeshift track individually, with their finishing time recorded. It’s a wild pursuit which demands skill, judgement, and a fair dose of courage, but like anything, it requires practice.

“Nothing beats experience,” William Snr emphasises.

“You have to just drive it and learn how to control the car.”

It’s an individual sport, but both father and son work as a team - navigator and driver. William Jnr only really began driving last year. Progression was gradual, his dad says, but once he got going, there was no stopping him.

“We started off last year, in the first couple of events we were nowhere,” he admitted.

“Then gradually throughout 2024 we started improving and improving, and then towards the end of the year took one or two class wins. And then this year, 2025, we were flying it altogether.”

Adrenaline-rush

Like his dad, the young William is an instantly likeable, humble sort of a guy who speaks candidly about what it’s like to compete. He loves the adrenaline-rush of driving, but admits that it’s a nerve-shredding experience as well.

“I’m always very nervous on the starting line, but it’s really fun, when you’re in the middle of a race. But you’d be under pressure as well,” young William said.

For a young lad, he shoulders the pressure rather well. Driving, it should be said, is only part of the equation. Both William Jnr and his dad built his autocross car together in a sort of a father and son bonding project. It was a long, technical process, with the road-cage (the part of the car that shields the driver) proving particularly difficult, as William Jnr details.

“To build the car took a very long time,” he reveals.

“We had to do a load of work on it. Spray it, paint it, fill in the dents. And then the road-cage was very hard as well. We had to weld it in, build it ourselves. It took ages, but it was worth it.”

Ireland is home to a thriving autocross community which stretches right across the country. It’s effectively a large extended family of motorsport enthusiasts which offers friendship, camaraderie, and high-octane racing. The two Williams love it.

As for Willam Jnr’s mother Carmel, and his three younger brothers Harry, Tommy & Josh, they are not quite as keen but they often come along for the spin. William Snr says there are arguments, sandwiches, and everything you would associate with a weekend family car trip.

“You could be going as far as the Naul in north Co. Dublin, or you could be heading all the way down to Skibbereen in West Cork, and then everywhere in between - you have Clare, you have Galway, Carrick-on-Suir, our own club in Birr, Youghal as well. During the summer, we’re off somewhere every weekend, some part of the world,” he added.

Critical question

There is no doubt that, like many motorsports, autocross delivers untold joy and elation to many people across the country, and indeed across the world. But there’s one critical question that you’ve been asking yourself since the beginning of this article: is it safe? It’s important to put the facts on the table, given that many motorsports suffer reputational damage due to a perception that they are unreasonably dangerous.

Autocross is widely regarded as one of the safest motorsports out there. But accidents can and do happen. It’s important to acknowledge the dangers - which are very real - but not to overstate them. William Snr & Jnr are confident in the current safety standards, and broadly speaking the statistics back them up.

The magic of motorsport was once again on display on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, as British driver Lando Norris fulfilled a childhood dream to win his debut Formula One championship. After 24 high-octane races across countries and continents, the McClaren speed-merchant emerged as champion, just two points ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Young William Cavanagh is chasing a slightly different kind of dream but the same kind of thrill.

On December 3rd last, the Borrisokane CC student was honoured at the Motorsport Ireland Awards. He stood alongside the likes of Offaly’s F2 sensation Alex Dunne, who represents the next generation of motorsport stars. William sees himself as part of that generation. He’s building his life around cars, and that, he says, is where his future lies.