The Trydel CAMS Victorian Hill Climb Championship has seen its third different winner in as many rounds as reigning champion Garry Martin opened up his 2019 account with a brilliant win.
With more than 75 drivers taking on the Mt Leuara hill climb and the championship title race wide open, Martin put on a near perfect performance to secure the fastest time on five of the available six runs.
Round one winner Michael Barker took out the fastest time on the opening run, coming within five tenths of the 30-second barrier, before Martin returned to his form of 2018 and won the remaining five runs.
Remarkably each of those winning runs were under 30 seconds, but it his was fifth run of the day that was the most impressive as he broke the 28 second barrier to post a winning time of 27.86 seconds.
Finishing more than one second off Martin’s incredible time was Michael Bishop, his fourth run time of 28.92 seconds ended up being half a second faster than Barker to secure a runner-up finish.
Despite Barker getting off to a strong start with the fastest time on the opening run, he was unable to find consistency throughout the remainder of the event, his final time of 29.33 coming on his final attempt.
Behind the wheel of the Ninja GA7, David Mahon again showed he can compete with the big dogs to finish fourth outright, while Andrew Mizzi managed to squeeze into the top five on his last attempt of the day.
Trailing Wim Janssen for a majority of the event, Mizzi’s final run saw him shave more than one second off his time and finish ahead of Janssen by two tenths of a second.
While Fred Galli comfortably sealed seventh place by more than one second, the battle behind him was one of the more memorable bouts of the round, with half a second separating three drivers.
Subaru WRX Pilot David Harris was the man to win that battle, finishing just over one tenth of a second ahead of Wesley Inkster. Rounding out the top 10 a further four tenths behind Inkster was Glen Latter in a Mazda RX7.
It was tight throughout the event, with nothing separating 18th places Bradley De Luca and Jack Perry, both drivers posting a time of 35.41 seconds.
Click here to view the full results.
The next round of the Trydel CAMS Victorian Hill Climb Championship takes place at Bryant Park on 28 April.