THE big question relating to the 2019 Legend of the Lakes hill climb is can someone break the current course record.
Adelaide’s Dan Day owns the record at the moment, after claiming it originally from Mount Gambier’s Peter Gazzard in 2017.
Day has won the last three Legends and will look for his fourth straight this weekend.
While it almost seems a formality, crowd favourite Kevin Mackrell has been hot on his heels each year, with little to separate the pair.
The two cars are completely different, but each is set up for one goal – to win the hill climb.
“The last three years we have been neck-and-neck with Mackrell,” Day said.
“It has been good tight racing between us.
“We will go up for our fourth straight time this year and hope for another win, but you never know.
“Mackrell has done a bit to his car so I have heard, so we will do a bit to ours to try to improve it in a couple of areas.”
While Mackrell runs and old-school Datsun 260z with a V8 engine, Day prefers a more modern Subaru WRX, with a wild turbo engine which outputs somewhere in the vicinity of 800 horsepower.
In recent years he has been able to dial it up to improve his times up the open section of the course.
But he said he has found the maximum power output he can best run and has gone for a smaller turbo this time around.
“We have found the maximum power we can run through the car without it being too much for the track,” Day said.
“We have gone for a slightly smaller turbo than we have run in the last couple of years to help with a bit of down-low torque it has been missing.
“It is always a bit ‘laggy’ up the top and out of the first three or four corners down the bottom.
“Now the power comes on about 700 rpm earlier, so it should be a faster car in the tighter stuff and still make the same top-end power.
“It is a good compromise all round.”
Other than that, the car is basically unchanged from last year.
However, Day has not competed in the car with the new setup, so it will be a case of try it and see what happens.
The rivalry between Day and Mackrell is similar to that of Gazzard and Mackrell in previous years.
Day said that is one part of the event which drives him to improve each year.
“For me it is about having a competitive racing partner,” he said.
“I like that side of it because it pushes me to be right on point every time I go up the hill.
“At the end of the weekend if we have won it, we have really earned it.”
While it is hard to imagine a faster time up the hill, which stands at 49.89 seconds, Day hopes to break that this year.
“We are expecting the car to be a bit faster,” he said.
“Providing the track conditions are there this year we are hoping for a mid to low 49.
“If we can be half a second quicker than our fastest up there we will be happy.
“The weather is looking fairly overcast this year which could stop us, but you never can tell until the day.
“The sun could come out at the right time and heat up the track, with the air cool for the engine which could work.”
Overall Day rates the hill climb as one of his favourite events throughout the year.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
“The whole family comes, plus all the workers from our business.
“We make it a real team event.
“The guys from SEAC do a good job of making it run smooth and we get plenty of runs each year.
“It is definitely one of my favourites.”
