MG Car Club of South Australia
O
AUSTRALIAN HILLCLIMB
CHAMPIONSHIP
From..Murray Stephenson
n the first weekend in November
the 75 th Australian Hillclimb Cham-
pionship was run at Mount Panorama,
Bathurst. Travelling in the correct direc-
tion, the start line was on the hump in
Mountain Straight and the finish on the
crest after Sulman Park before exiting
the track to the Pits at McPhillamy Park.
WOW! I have a new respect for those
who drive the mountain at speed! A field
of 143 of the country’s best Hillclimb
cars gathered for a great weekend.
Scott and I took the Honda Civic to have
a go with Scott keen to defend his class
title from 2018. The car runs in the Im-
proved Production under 1600cc class
which was, again, a very competitive
class with nine drivers in six cars. A Mini
Clubman, Corolla, Honda, Gemini, clas-
sic Mini Cooper and a Datsun “1200”.
The Gemini was a local at his first event
but the others have all been met before
at Moe and/or Collingrove.
The camaraderie in this class is great
with competitors greeting each other
warmly and encouraging each other
over the weekend. This, however, does
not preclude a healthy dose of banter
between runs.
The track is challenging from start to
finish, particularly in a small car with little
power. It is essential to keep up the
speed from the start and to hold speed
through corners as any speed lost can-
not be recovered.
The surface of the track is smooth with
no bumps or cracks and offers good grip
but the walls are all very solid if you get
it wrong. Fortunately there were very
few damaged cars over the weekend.
There were three practice runs on Fri-
day with three official runs on each of
Saturday and Sunday although the rain
26
came on Sunday afternoon and most
people only had one or two runs.
The first six outright places came from
the Formula Libre 2001cc and Over
class with Malcolm Oastler taking out-
right in his OMS28, turbo Hyabusa pow-
ered, with a time of 34.88 seconds
closely followed by Dean Amos in the
Gould GR55B, McLaren 2.5 litre, on
34.90 seconds. Malcolm posted that he
crossed the finish line at 245km/h in
sixth gear at 11,000rpm with shift lights
flashing! To put it in proportion, Scott
managed to reach the Cutting in the
Honda in 35.98 seconds.
The event was live streamed on Blend-
line TV over the weekend and it was
great to be able to watch each run on
the computer. The camera operators
struggled early on to capture the fastest
cars on camera as they couldn’t swing
the camera fast enough.
Scott took the class honours in IP under
1600 with a time of 55.85sec with the
Datsun over 2sec behind, 58.08sec,
followed by the Mini Cooper on
59.12sec and me on 59.13sec. The oth-
ers in class were all over 60sec.
It was a great weekend with good com-
pany, great competition and a chance to
drive the hallowed Mount Panorama.
The Honda had recently been refreshed
and run in at the MSCA event in Sep-