Rotary Hillclimb Racing Hillclimb Results Darren Duffield 3rd Outright at the 15th annual Leyburn Sprints

Darren Duffield 3rd Outright at the 15th annual Leyburn Sprints

The Leyburn Sprints have been running now for the last 15 years, the event celebrates the running of the first Grand Prix in Queensland some 61 years ago.

This year was one of the best events to date and with one of the largest recorded spectator crowds and the largest entry list of 211 cars.

The organizers and officials must be congratulated and should be proud of the event, with proceeds going back into the next event to make it even better. The other beneficiaries of the proceeds are the local Leyburn community projects like the Rural Fire Brigade, the Leyburn State School P &C and the Leyburn RSL just to name a few.

Darren on Track at Leyburn Sprints in the RPV01

This year had special guest drivers from V8 Supercars, Dick Johnson, Shane Van Gisbergen and Tim Slade, and South American Dakar entrant Bruce Garland. (Van Gisbergen and Slade could only attend on Sunday.)

There were 211 competitors all ready to attack the 1.1Km track around the houses in Leyburn, they ranged from a 1932 Triumph Wolseley Special, Toowoomba’s Ray Vandersee in his advanced Skelta G-Force Spyder sports car, which is powered by a lightweight 3.4 Lt V8 engine. The youngest car was a 2010 Prosport Eclipse sports car of Grant Watson, and only one Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car of Darren Duffield (RPV01) just to list a few cars.

Darren Duffield in the Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car RPV01, had work commitments so he could not run on Saturday but he was allowed a sighting run first thing Sunday morning. Darren’s first official run on Sunday was a time of 49.89 seconds this was a new track record but this was unfortunately the only official run Darren was able to set. This was due to a gearbox crown-wheel breakage, this happened during his 2nd run, this breakage is the first DNF for Darren at the Leyburn sprints. Darren commented that this was unfortunate but he was optimistic about next year’s event, where he will strive to reclaim the track record.

The track record that Darren set was official up until the last run of the day on Sunday when it was broken by Ray Vandersee in his Skelta G-Force with a time of 48.98 seconds and also Grant Watson in his Prosport Eclipse sports car with a time of 49.62 seconds.

It was still a very good result for Darren as he ended up 3rd Outright & 1St in Class, with only one run we can’t wait until next year.

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