Picture: CURTIS BOYD
SEAC Park came alive on Sunday with the South Eastern Automobile Club running the third round of its 2020 khanacross series.
A hard-charging Aaron Bowering topped the field on the day in his Subaru 4wd wagon, setting the fastest time in all nine runs to hand him the outright and Class F honours.
His total penalty-free time of 505.79 seconds was well clear of the next best time from Sam Thomas.
Director of the day Bruce Hamilton put together a competition which had most of the 27 entrants smiling all the way home.
Hamilton has a history of adding some quirks to ensure participants do not become complacent and Sunday was no exception.
He strung together some interesting tracks on the ever-drying surfaces, with test area one having a “short and sweet” twisty track.
That was followed by a reversed version of the first course, which caught a few drivers off guard.
The extension of those first runs only had one pass, as some of the softer areas were causing concern.
After a short break, the fourth test area was in action.
Hamilton set it up on the Megaw Road side of SEAC Park.
Up until that test area the track layouts were tight and twisty, so the 4WD’s did not have much of an advantage over the 2WD cars which are used for Khanacross by the majority of competitors.
The extra power and grip of the 4WD cars stood out, with some straighter sections in the fourth test.
Experience in rally driving also came to the fore with several 2WD cars pushing to keep the pressure on those with extra grip.
Shuffling the schedule about to keep the course safe going into the afternoon sun for the last pass, resulted in a fifth layout and nine runs for the day.
At the end of the event Bowering’s impressive run earned him the bragging rights, followed by Thomas in his newly prepared Subaru WRX who had a hot and cold day to finish runner-up with a time of 537.09 seconds, which included two marker penalties.
The cat among the pigeons would best describe the consistently hard push from 2WD Toyota Soarer pilot Phil Wilson.
He had the Soarer on song all day and matched it with the 4WD Subarus and Mitsubishi Evos to show plenty of flair
A total time of 540.48 seconds placed him third outright and first in Class E points for his penalty-free run.
Next in line in fourth outright was Dale Cagney, who steered his Evo home with 545.30 seconds, including a penalty on test three.
Also enjoying a busy day at the wheel, Damien Wilson powered his Nissan Silvia to a run with a single penalty, booking him fifth outright, while leading the points for Class C with a total time of 560.74.
A relative newcomer to khanacross, Leon Chugg brought out a tidy Subaru RS for its maiden run and improved as the day went on.
His total time of 562.72 seconds was a fitting reward for a clean run and was enough for sixth place overall.
Rounding out the top 10 were club juniors Luke Winterfield and Bradley Harry, Ken Trimnell and Ken Moore.
The next event on the club calendar is an autocross meeting to be held at SEAC Park on August 2.
