The Motorsport Australia Tasmanian Circuit Racing Championship held the fourth round of the 2024 season on the weekend, with no shortage of drama occurring in the two-day race meeting.

Hosted by the Light Car Club of Tasmania at Symmons Plains Raceway, there were seven different categories in action throughout the event, with a good mix of results throughout.

Unsurprisingly one of the most entertaining encounters of the weekend belonged in the ACL Performance Hyundai Excel Series, where Oliver Wickham, Jackson Shaw and Jeremy Bennett continued their season-long title battle.

Highlighting the close competition between the trio was no more than two seconds separating them in the five races, however it was Wickham who ended up taking out top honours after winning three races. 

Wickham got off to a flying start by winning the first two races over Shaw, before Shaw himself managed to snatch a victory in the weekend’s third race – beating Wickham and Bennett by less than two tenths of a second.

Wickham wrestled his way back into the lead in the fourth race to beat Shaw by one tenth of a second, while Bennett finished the weekend with a win in the final affair, crossing the line ahead of Shaw and Wickham, who had done enough to seal the victory.

The combined Historic Touring Cars and HQ Holdens proved just as entertaining throughout its five races as John Talbot and Phil Ashlin exchanged race wins all weekend. 

In the end, Talbot’s three wins in his Ford Mustang were enough to secure the overall victory over Ashlin, who picked up two wins himself. Whilst both drivers went back and forth for race wins, the gap between them in most races was 10 seconds or more, with the exception of Ashlin’s second win, which saw the pair split by just half a second. 

In the HQ Holdens class, Anthony Viney was the dominant driver, winning four of the five races. 

The battle for an outright victory in the combined Sports Sedans and Banjo’s Bakery GT A, B & C was also between two competitors with Steve Gangell’s three victories enough for the Holden Commodore VL driver to win the round.

His closest competitor was Lance Jones, who missed Saturday’s action but won both of his first two races on Sunday by one second, only for Gangell to regain the lead in the final affair and take out the race.

Formula Vee had a driver win the majority of the category’s races, with Noel Clark guiding his Elfin NG 2 to a quartet of victories. 

The only difference between the two categories was that Clark was made to work for his victories, with Michael Vaughan and Richard Gray applying all sorts of pressure in every race. 

Similar to the Hyundai Excels, very little separated the top three drivers in each race with the margin at the chequered flag around half a second – however Clark was able to take out the round with his victories.

In race four, Gray took out a win for himself with Vaughan and Clark crossing the line just over three-tenths behind. 

There was no question about who proved victorious in Improved Productions, with Jason House guiding his BMW E92 M3 to a clean sweep of victories.

House was in a league of his own during the five outings, winning every race by 20 seconds or more as Ayrton Richardson finished every race second in his Toyota KE35 Corolla.

In the event’s regularity competition, there were more than a handful of drivers capable of winning the round, with five different drivers topping the point score in each session.  

However, taking out the overall win was Justin Nicklason, who steered his Mitsubishi Lancer to the most points in session two, while scoring the second-most points in the other four sessions.

Despite being highly consistent, he only took out the win by three points as fellow Lancer driver Philip Gardner scored more points on multiple occasions, with the second session gap of seven points proving the major difference.

Rounding out the weekend was the Motorsport Australia Tasmanian Supersprint Championship, which had a solid turnout of competitors attempting to post the fastest time of the circuit.

Claiming that honour was Bill Rattray in his Subaru WRX Sti RA after going fastest in all five sessions – however, his best lap for the day came in the second session with his last attempt of 58.2965 seconds.

The next best driver was Rye Dunsmuir, who steered his BMW M4 to a time of 1:01.9821 on his fourth and final lap in the weekend’s opening session. 

The next round of the Motorsport Australia Tasmanian Circuit Racing Championship will be in September with the Hobart Sporting Car Club to host the Championship at Baskerville Raceway on 13-15 September.