Results – Australian Hillclimb Championship – Ringwood Park NSW 2014

Daydawn Electrical Australian Hillclimb Championship Results 1st & 2nd November 2014.

This year’s Australian Hillclimb Championship was organized by the MG Car Club of Newcastle with huge support from Daydawn Electrical as the major sponsor for the event. The track for this year was the newly extended track at Ringwood Park Motorsport Complex just 14Km north of Raymond Terrace in NSW.

The First 3 Outright Drivers Australian Hillclimb Championships 2014.
Malcolm Oastler 1st. (Center) Brett Hayward 2nd (Right) Greg Ackland 3rd (Left)

With hotter than average weather the AHC kicked-off with Friday’s practice runs, most of the people running took to the track to hone their skills for the main event. As this was a new track all the people that had not run at this new event almost the entire field took the time to do a few runs to get familiar with the track layout.

The first official runs on Saturday started from 9am and were mostly under control, and only a few cars had some off’s. Ron Hay in his beautiful Synergy Dallara was one of the unfortunate people who had an issue when the car hit the wall at the end of the back straight. Ron showed how professional he and his team are, they had the car all repaired for the last run on Saturday, great effort Ron.

The pace for outright times were extremely fast and very close between the current Australian Champ Greg Ackland in his self built (Ackland Ninja – GA8), Brett Hayward also in a self built car (Hayward 014) and Malcolm Oastler in his new self built (OMS28). Malcolm with his new turbo engine and new chassis set the pace early setting the fastest times on Saturday.

The outright times on Sunday were dominated by Malcolm Oastler, Greg Ackland and Brett Hayward, with Malcolm 1st outright setting the fastest time of the weekend of 32.86 this was a new track record. Brett and Greg took the fight to Malcolm, but Brett ended up 2nd outright just 0.60 sec behind Malcolm and then Greg was 3rd outright another 0.9 sec behind Brett. 4th outright was Bill Norman in his Gekko with a time of 34.82sec.

It was very impressive to see Malcolm Oastler run around the Hillclimb, to watch Malcolm on the absolute edge was something special. Well done Malcolm well deserved win and congratulations to Brett and Greg it is very rare in Motorsport today, to have the outright placing with great blokes driving their own vehicles they have built and modified themselves, well done.

The first 4 outright placing were all motorcycle engine powered cars, the fastest Non motorcycle powered vehicle was Warwick Hutchinson running his Mazda 13B Turbo Rotary open-wheeler with a time of 35.83sec, “go the rotors!”

The top 10 outright cars were –

1st Malcolm Oastler – OMS28 – 32.86

2nd Brett Hayward – Hayward 014 – 33.46

3rd Greg Ackland – Ninja – GA8 – 34.36

4th Bill Norman – Gekko – 34.82

5th Warwick Hutchinson – Van-Dieman RPV02 – 35.83

6th Edward McCane – Hayward 09 – 35.94

6th Doug Barry – Lola – 35.94

7th Dean Amos – Gould GR37 – 36.00

8th Daryl Watt – Force PC – 36.22

9th Ron Hay – Synergy Dallara – 36.67

10th Allan Foley – Dallara Suzuki – 36.71

The Rotary Hillclimb Racing Cars summary –

With 105 cars taking part in this year’s event there was 5 Rotary Hillclimb Racing Cars competing in this Hillclimb, Cooper Calman (RX7 13B Turbo), Neville and Jason Gregory duel entry in their (RX7 12A), Ian Holdsworth (RX7 12A Turbo), and Warwick Hutchinson (RPV02 13B Turbo Formula Libre) a short summary of how they all went and their best times are listed below.

Cooper Calman from NSW was running in 2B Marque Sports over 1600cc Class, in his well presented Mazda Rx7 13B Turbo. Cooper,s fastest time over the weekend was 40.22sec. with this time Cooper finished 2nd in his class and 28th outright. Good result great car and good clean driving, great to see more rotary cars running Hillclimbs.

Neville Gregory and Jason Gregory both from NSW shared their Mazda RX7 12A running in 3J Improved Production Cars 2001 – 3000cc Class. Unfortunately our gun photographer “Mark II” did not get Photos of Jason & Neville’s RX7 hopefully next year! Neville’s fastest time over the weekend was 41.49sec. With this time Neville finished 4th in his class and 52nd outright. Jason was also driving the same car and his fastest time over the weekend was 41.99sec. With this time Jason finished 5th in his class and 58th outright another great result from the rotary cars that were at this Australian championships this year.

Ian Holdsworth from Vic in his RX7 12A Turbo was running in 2A Oprn & Closed Sports Cars over 1600cc Class. Ian’s fastest time over the weekend was 41.91sec. This time allowed Ian to finish 3rd in his class and 55th outright. Again another good result this meant that only 5 rotary’s running nut they still managed to finish in the top ½ of the entire field.

Warwick Hutchinson was running his Van-dieman RF92 RPV02 (13B Turbo) Rotary Hillclimb Racing Car in the Formula Libre – 2001cc & over Class. Warwick had not run at this track before and had issues trying to get to know the new layout, but he put in a very good time on the last run of the day at 35.83sec, he finished 2nd in Class and 5th outright.

This was one of the best Australian Championships that we have attended and the MG car club of Newcastle and the organizing committee must be congratulated for their hard work well done and thanks it was a pleasure to compete.