Adelaide motorsport talent Daniel Day claimed the weekend’s Trident Tyres Legend of the Lakes Hill Climb for the seventh consecutive time with some impressive driving across the weekend and even breaking his own track record set in 2017.
He now holds the honour of being the equal outright winner with Peter Gazzard with the most overall event wins.
Day took the win by more than two seconds over closest rival Kevin Mackrell from Traralgon, Victoria, while Coonawarra’s Damien Brand claimed third outright in his Subaru.
The track time was not the only record to fall, with 152 nominations for the weekend making it the largest ever Legend of the Lakes field.
Day was thrilled to be able to defend his title and smash his record in the process.
“I am very happy with the seventh win in a row and happy to have broken my track record at the same time,” Day said.
“I am incredibly happy to have a record for the most consecutive wins and equal outrights with Peter Gazzard.”
Day’s weekend started slowly with his Subaru, only just slotting his Subaru into the sub-50 second bracket after enduring some teething issues with the vehicle’s gearbox paddle shifter not working the way it should.
“Saturday we had some gear shifting issues,” Day said.
“We have got a new paddle shift system in the car which is experimental this weekend, so we were struggling a lot with that at the start.
“We could not get into fifth gear.
“So overnight we made some changes, and the weather was perfect.
“With every run it was getting a little bit faster and we had some good tyres on the car which helped.
“I did three 49-second passes and that last one I broke my 2017 track record with a 48.885 second run.”
Day was on top of things after overcoming Saturday’s gearbox gremlins, settling into a groove on Sunday and not looking back.
“We got on top of the gear shift and that was not on my mind anymore, so I was more focused on the runs up the hill,” he said.
“I could just focus on the car and getting the most out of it, which is most important.
“We just bumped the rev limiter up and ran it in fourth gear and it seemed to be happy there.
“I was very happy with the way the car responded to the changes.”
This was the first weekend out for the new setup for Day and it was reaching speeds in excess of 200kph, which was no small feat tackling the hill.
“There were a few changes made to the car with a new Bosch motorsport anti-lock braking system which was a big benefit,” he said
“Especially coming into the chicane, I could brake a lot deeper coming in and out of there.
“Our terminal speed with the new car was hitting the 200kph mark which is 5-10kph quicker than last year’s car.
“We were going faster and braking deeper and showing good times.”
For Day, planning has already started for the 2023 event and he is hoping to claim another victory and make his mark as the all-time record holder.
“We will come back next year bigger and better than ever and try and win it again,” he said.
Speaking with The SE Voice, race director Kevin Raedel said he was “on cloud nine” after the successful weekend.
“We had a few incidents on the Friday, a few crashes which held things up,” he said.
“But the rest of the weekend went very well.
“We had a bit of rain late on Saturday afternoon which slowed it down a bit, but we got through six runs on Saturday and four on the Sunday and that was perfect.
“We got very lucky with the weather.”
Raedel said there were 92 classics and South East Automobile Club entries who took part on Friday, with Adelaide’s Anthony Norris claiming the win in his Nissan Silvia.
“It was great to have the spectators back after two years,” he said.
“During COVID we had no spectators for two years, we did not miss a year at all racing, but we did not have crowds.
“This year they saw good quality racing. The drivers were keen to get out and race with crowds.”
