At the annual event that moves from state-to-state, circuit to circuit, the New South Welshman won each of his heats and took out the 20-lap final with a handy margin of 11.1 seconds.
It was another agonising second place for NSW’s Luke Harrison. It is the fourth time in four years that he has been runner up on the category’s showpiece weekend.
This one particularly painful as he challenged Osborn on several occasions, in the heats and the final before a blown head gasket left him struggling to hold on to second place.
For 16 laps Harrison challenged for the lead, but at the start of the next he was in trouble and fell away from the leader. Over the ensuing laps Osborn’s teammate John Baxter and Queensland’s Seth Mathie negated the gap.
Two laps from the end, Mathie passed Baxter who was able to get third back a lap later. Their intense scrap saved Harrison with the three half a second apart at the finish. Harrison’s only consolation was a new lap record set earlier.
Third last year, Jarrod Harber was fourth ahead of Jack Harriosn, Matt Barker, Chris Molle, David Proglio and Wayne Potts. Previous National winner Tasmanian Phil Ashlin tangled with Barker at Turn 2, dropped to 20th and recovered to 11th.
The main event had one safety car that was deployed after Darryl Crouch (SA) was spun out at Turn 5 in an incident that took out Scott Andrike (Qld) who was caught out with nowhere to go.
Fifty-two entered for the event that consisted of six heats and a repechage before 49 made it to the all-in final.
In the heats, Osborn beat Barker in the first, then Harrison in two very close encounters. Harrison had one win, where he downed Baxter who had two wins, over Mathie and then Barker. The Repechage determined the starting positions outside the top 20. Darren Jenkins (SA) won by just 0.06s over Andriske.
Next year’s HQ Holden Nationals will be at carco.com.au Raceway in Western Australia.
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