The South Eastern Automobile Club started the 2023 competition year with the Twin Peaks Hill Climb, held at the western area of the coastal reserve at Port MacDonnell.
Proving to be a success story for the club and the Port MacDonnell business people, it was also popular among the lucky 70 competitors that secured a spot to run in the two-day event.
It was an early start for every competitor and the sizable team of officials needed to run an event of this size.
Racing got under way after the drivers’ briefing and warnings given to the eager participants to respect the track, as it will “bite” those that push too hard.
Club life member Kevin Raedel drew the dubious honour of car number one and tackled the technical first track, followed by an open type second track in the black Fiesta, not putting a foot wrong all day – well most of it anyway.
Competitor cars ranged from a “legends” purpose built race car, through all types of sedan based two wheel drive vehicles, many four-wheel drive Subaru WRXs and Mitsubishi Evos to a Citroen 2CV – certainly not your average hill climb vehicle.
Most drivers behaved well on the first run, with the early start leaving the bitumen cold, plenty of sand blown across the roadways by the strong winds and a little moisture thrown in for good measure, the track grip level was not great and caught out a couple.
Of the capacity field, roughly half were SEAC members with the rest evenly spread from Adelaide and Victorian clubs.
Having two days of competition, the scoring system ensures the driver has to compete in both days to have any chance of a trophy, either for fastest car or class placing.
The two days are split into two separate runs, with the quickest time for track one and two on Saturday added to the same runs for Sunday and placings calculated on the quickest combined track time.
Most drivers are looking to better the one minute time for each track, some succeeding easily with huge horsepower and very good suspension setups, with many others having a compromise on grip levels with lesser power, making it much harder to keep the car flowing around the tricky layouts.
Bravado also counts when all else fails, for many near misses being talked about after the competition had finished on Sunday afternoon.
On day one there were not a lot of casualties from “off track” excursions, four rounds were completed with very windy overcast conditions keeping the track temperature “cold” and dirty.
At the top of the day’s time sheets it was no surprise to see a four-wheel drive fill the first six spots, with Doug Johnson, Sean Day, Guy Chet, Damien Brand, Jordan Rohrlach and Patrick Hitchcock in that order, from the black RX7 of Glen Latter – always quick, Dave Harris, Steven Grinstead in the lovely sounding Commodore VL and Paul Keen rounding out the top 10.
Doug Johnson drove his Subaru WRX extremely well and pulled a 52.64 on the third run and 47.20 second time on the second run.
Sean Day wound his way through to a best time of 53.42 and 48.82 seconds on his third attempt.
Guy Chet did his best run on track one on the fourth go with a 54.11 and 48.92 on the second attempt of track two.
Damien Brand scored the best time on track one and track two on the third run, 54.37 and 49.99 seconds.
Jordan Rohrlach did his best work on round four on both tracks with a 55.40 and 52.90 second pass.
Patrick Hitchcock scored his points on run three with 57.02 and 51.74 for his best day’s run.
Series sponsor Dave Harris is another Subaru WRX campaigner that is maturing with every run and did his best work on round three, scoring a 56.95 and 52.80.
Steve Grinstead always gives the VL Commodore a good workout and worked through to round four for his quickest runs of 58.37 and 52.04 for day one with arguably the best sounding car on the track.
Paul Keen drove the Mitsubishi Evo well and also used the last run to advantage, with a 57.66 and 53.44 seconds passes.
Sunday proved another early start for all and the weather looked as though it was going to be the same as the previous day, with more overcast, threatening skies and lots of wind, but it cleared late morning to turn on a bit of heat and that saw some very quick times appear on the score sheets.
Doug Johnson continued his precious day’s effort setting the pace for Sunday on both tracks, 52.73 on the third run for track one and 48.20 on the second pass on track two.
Damien Brand used the warmer track conditions to advantage clocking a 53.34 on track one first fun, 48.38 on second run of track two.
Guy Chet was also quick on track one first run 54.00 and a 49.07 for the third pass on track two.
Sean Day did it all on the first attempt, 54.12 and 49.17 being his best for day two.
Glenn Latter hit the ground running with a first pass on track one of 57.38 and followed that up with a 48.82 seconds run on track two at the third run.
Jordan Rorhlach also started well on track one first run with a 54.79 and second track third pass of 54.59 seconds.
Patrick Hitchcock did his best work on the warmer surface with track one second pass of 57.51 seconds and track two third pass stopping the clock at 50.78 seconds.
Steve Grinstead saved his best for the last runs with a track one time of 58.71 and track two of 50.71 seconds.
Mark Dixon got his act together on the second day, pushing the Subaru WRX a bit harder to achieve track one time of 57.23 and track two time of 52.39 seconds on the warm third pass on each layout.
Brad Smith was another to make use of the warmer road surface for the third pass at each track, 57.97 on track one, 52.27 seconds on track two.
Once the racing had been completed, the time sheets had to be entered for the remaining last few cards and checked to ensure all had been correctly entered, trophy presentation took place at the picturesque seaside area next to the lookout.
