PERFECT weather, a brilliant course and a record turnout greeted the South Eastern Automobile Club’s opening Khanacross round at the Heywood wood wine and roses festival last Saturday.
The event was run in conjunction with round one of the Victorian Championship Khanacross series, with 47 drivers taking to the course.
Director for the event Paul Height was supplied with an excellent layout prepared by “local” Kym Barclay and his crew.
With such a large field of competitors to get through, he selected two good length courses and ran each of the tracks twice in each direction to give a total of eight runs for the day.
The mid-course application of some water to keep the dust down presented a further challenge to the unlucky few who were about to run when the water truck did its job.
Results for the day saw drivers push their cars to the limit to set a quick time and in doing so many made contact with course markers and copped the five-second penalty.
Other competitors faced some geographical challenges and wandered off course, resulting in the application of a wrong direction penalty.
Among the many present on the day, Jason Winterfield had a very hot and cold day in his Subaru.
He laid claim to many fastest times which were hampered by wrong directions in his first and last runs, putting him well down the final list.
Fellow four-wheel-drive Subaru pilots Sam Thomas and Ken Trimnell managed to keep on course, drive quickly and leave the markers alone most of the time to be first and second for the day respectively, with just one penalty each.
Visiting Victorian Ross Batson is always quick in his class B Mirage and followed the two four wheel drives home for third outright.
Times were close for the day with Thomas accumulating a total time of 440.22 seconds to head Trimnell with 444.85, while Batson in his two wheel drive rounded out the podium with 456.38 seconds.
Another Victorian Mike Exell turned up in his Honda powered Motorkhana special to “give it a go”.
He managed to stay on track and came home with a total time of 457.82 to just miss out on the podium.
In fifth place with a total for the eight tests of 458.28 seconds, Brady Winterfield finally saw some reward for the work done to the family Hyundai Excel, which is always well presented in looks and performance on the track.
All of the top five finishers had one penalty included in their total for the day, most often for sliding through the finish garage.
The Wilson family challenge continues for the year and Damien earned the bragging rights for the week, even though he accumulated three penalties on the way.
With a total of 467.05, he managed to head father Geoffrey with his total of 469.51, which included two penalties.
They filled sixth and seventh positions respectively.
With a penalty free run, junior Bradley Harry put in an excellent drive for a total time of 475.78 seconds, good enough to lock in eighth outright and the junior division win.
Fellow junior Jack Michelson finished ninth outright in the Boyd family Corolla.
He managed to leave the course markers alone for a penalty-free time of 477.66, to beat fellow drivers Curtis (480.04) and Rian Boyd (483.55), raising the question to whether he will be loaned the car again.
Murray Height had a good day out and kept away from the markers to record his best ever outing, with a total of 479.50 seconds, for 10th outright.
Big car class E driver Phil Wilson was right on the pace until too much spraying of gravel in the last two tests saw four penalty cones added to his quick times.
That pushed his placing from a possible sixth to 13th outright.
With close times set throughout the day, the results show any penalty received was costly to outright positions.
Paul Height extended his thanks to all the helpers who put in plenty of hard work to have the successful event run smoothly.
Round two of the SEAC Khanacross series will be held on June 30, with the venue to be advised closer to the date.
CLASS RESULTS
Damien Wilson, Class C; Murray Height, Class D; Phil Wilson, Class E; Mike Exell, Class F; Sam Thomas, Class G; Bradley Harry, Class J.
FALCON CHALLENGE RESULTS
Phil Wilson, Bruce Hamilton, Kevin Raedell.
