Mount Gambier’s Valley Lakes precinct will roar to life this weekend as the Trident Tyre Centre Legend of The Lakes Hillclimb hits the circuit for another year.
Entries for this year’s 18th running of the event sold out within 27 minutes, with all 150 slots filled.
Last year Adelaide’s Dan Day claimed the win for the seventh time with some impressive driving across the weekend and even breaking his own track record set in 2017.
The 2022 win gave him the honour of being the equal outright winner with Peter Gazzard with the most wins ever, after he took the win by more than two seconds over rival Kevin Mackrell from Traralgon, Victoria, while Coonawarra’s Damien Brand claimed third outright.
Day will be back this year to gun for a history making eighth title, which would rank him the climb’s most successful competitor.
“Legend of the Lakes Hillclimb is in my eyes the best hillclimb event in Australia,” Day said.
“I have competed in many motorsport events over the last decade, Kevin (Raedel) and his team really do such a world class job running this each year.
“The organisation is flawless and nothing stops us getting plenty of seat time over the three days,” Day said.
“The piece of road offers all sorts of challenges and very well suited to a mix of cars.”
Day will be racing in his SJ1000, which is a 2013 Subaru Spec C STI.
“The idea was to use off the shelf parts that we sell and use here daily at S&J Automotive, rather than an all out ground up custom build,” he said.
“These days the car is definitely at the extreme end of the scale for its style build, but that has naturally happened of the eight years making it faster each year.
“Its first debut event in 2016 (Legend of the Lakes) was a win, showing the potential of the car and me combined.
“The acceleration and overall power is probably my favourite part of the car. It’s brutal and a handful to drive fast, but the handling sharpness allows for many fast micro adjustments throughout any course or lap.”
The weekend’s events kick off tomorrow, which will be devoted to historic cars, marque sports cars, front engine clubmans and replicas of older cars.
Saturday and Sunday will be open to cars of all kinds allowing anyone to get in on the action.
There are 95 cars racing on Friday and 150 starts for Saturday and Sunday, the Friday field was increased from the initial number of 75 racers after high demand.
The race covers a distance of 1.4km in the Valley Lakes and tests drivers to their limits attempting to record the fastest time up the hill.
Alongside the three days of non-stop hillclimb action there will be lots of other events on offer.
There will be a car show, the Bosch top 10 shootout, food trucks and event merchandise for purchase.
Thanks to the team at Clutch Life Media the year’s racing will be available to livestream via the Trident Tyre Centre Legend of The Lakes Hillclimb Facebook page.
