For the second year in a row, Dean Amos is the Australian Hillclimb Champion.
In his British-built 2006 Gould GR55B powered by a Nicholson McLaren V8, he was 1.8s faster than everyone, the only one to go sub-50s, and set a new Bryant Park circuit record of 48.59s on the Figure 8 layout.
“Second on now and much harder than the first one, that one was much harder than the first one,” said the six-time and current Queensland Hillclimb Champion.
“The track is quite different, it’s a bit wild to be blunt. It took me a few days to get my head around it, but we got there in the end.”
The event is a one-off title chance which moves from state-to-state on an annual basis. This year it was run by the Victorian Gippsland Car Club. There were 87 entries who competed across 30 classes.
Amos won the Formula Libre 2000cc and over class while, second was two-time champion Brett Hayward who took out the FL 751-1300cc class. The Hayward 014 pilot previously held the record he set in 2011, when he won the AHC.
Third place went to the current NSW and 2022 national champion Dean Tighe in his Empire Wrath/Hayabusa turbo after just three runs each day. The first day ended prematurely after a spin took out the floor on the right hand side of the car and he could only do the final three runs on Sunday.
Next was Greg Ackland (F/L 1301-2000cc Ninja GA8/Kawasaki turbo) from SA Hillclimb Champion David Mahon (Dallara F394/Hayabusa), Alan Foley (R Foley turbo), Victorian Hillclimb Champions Mike Barker (Hayward 06) and Ewen Moile (Ramblebee Mk8).
Eighth place and the winner of the F/L up to 750cc went to Patrick Malanaphy in his Ya-Car Cross Kart in front of Peter Minahan (Hayward 07) and Matt Healey in another Ya-Car.
The fastest in Sports Cars was Harry Pfeiffer in his Mallock U2 Mk21 in 15th, and best of the Tin Tops was Mirko Grbic in his Time Attack Mitsubishi Evo.
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