Several members of the Sporting Register regularly enjoy the opportunity to drive their sports and classic cars outside the restrictive confines of legal road behaviour, by participating in organised motorsport events. Some of the most popular events are hillclimbs and we are fortunate to have one of the country’s best hillclimb venues, Bryant Park, very close by in the Haunted Hills near Newborough. As well as hillclimbs, the Gippsland Car Club sometimes run khanacross events at their track utilizing sections of the circuit as well as the main bitumen car park area. A khanacross is a longer, faster and sometimes more complicated version of a motorkhana that places emphasis on a car’s maneuverability, acceleration and braking, as well as the driver’s skill and memory of the course layout. On Sunday 28th Feb, Ian Maud (Toyota MR2) and Steve Schmidt (Bugeye Sprite) competed at GCC’s latest khanacross event in company with a group of Sprites from the Austin Healey Sprite Drivers’ Club and a wide range of other vehicles which included several MX5s and high performance road cars. Although not competing, it was nice to see John, Hayden and Locky Fowler turning up in their Sprites to support their fellow Sprite Club members.? Ian did extremely well in the supercharged MR2, placing second outright and giving a faultless display of precision driving. The less said about Steve’s performance the better – on the courses that where driven correctly, the times were quite good; but unfortunately brain-fade led to a number of WDs (wrong direction) and a mediocre overall standing. The saying, “The older I get, the faster I was”, has never been more appropriate.
The third round of the Victorian Hillclimb Championship was held at Mt Leura, Camperdown over the weekend of? March 5th and 6th. Mt Leura is an extinct volcanic cinder cone that has a lookout at the summit overlooking a spectacular tectonic landscape. The hillclimb event is run on the lower third of the lookout road, the upper sections being deemed too dangerous because of the lack of safety fencing. Jane Vollebregt (purple MGB roadster which has replaced her blue MGBGT), David Anderson (MGB roadster) and Ian Holdsworth (Mazda RX7 turbo) made the trip to Camperdown to compete at this year’s Championship event and despite the very hot weather came home with first place medallions in each of their classes. An outstanding result that put each of these keen competitors in a strong position for the rest of the series which moves to Bryant Park for the next round on Sunday 10th April.
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