The CAMS South Australian Motor Race Championship has held another successful round for 2019, with around 100 cars competing at Mallala Motorsport Park.
While there were a number of categories sharing grids for their five races, the headline category for the event was the Wynn's Circuit Excels, once again with 34 cars split across four groups.
Like the championship's previous round at The Bend Motorsport Park, the groups took each other on in separate heats before a grand final decided the winner and just like he did last month, Asher Johnstone came away victorious in another thrilling encounter with reigning champion Michael Clemente.
This time round though, Johnstone kept Clemente at bay throughout the whole weekend beating him in both the first race and then the race that mattered.
Johnstone’s clean sweep earned him both the Ryan Pannowitch Memorial Trophy and the round victory, while two wins to Clemente earned him second place overall. Despite Thomas Benford coming third in the final, Denny Errigo finished the weekend in third after securing a win and two runner-ups.
Johnstone was not the only driver to secure a clean sweep of wins at Mallala, with three other drivers proving too strong for their respective fields.
Most notably, the East Coast Minis enjoyed their own track time with a strong showing of entries, but it was a Victorian who stole the show with Craig Lindsell picking up a handful of wins.
It was a tight battle for second as another Victorian in Linda Devlin won a tussle with local driver Neil Turner for the outright round runner-up finish, while Iain McDougall came second in the category’s special trophy race.
It was more straightforward in the Sports Cars and Sedans with Ian Wilson finishing first ahead of Nicholas Paul in all five races. Four thirds to Paul Mitolo secured the Ferrari pilot third place.
A similar story occurred in the Historic/Non Historic and Formula Ford races with Andrew Ford steering his Birrana 274 to five outright victories over Motorlab ASP driver Jim Doig. Matthew Woodland was the best of the Formula Ford drivers.
Another open wheel dedicated category in Formula Vee saw Adam Newton claiming bragging rights after winning the first four races.
Newton was on track for his fifth win and the perfect weekend, but a mistake in the first lap of the final race saw eventual runner-up, Joel Oliver, handed the race.
It was a weekend of two tales in the joint Saloon Cars, HQ Holdens, Historic Touring races as Shawn Jamieson won all of Saturday’s races, while David Lines took out all of Sunday’s results.
With Lines winning the Kaye Morissett Memorial as part of his Sunday domination, the weekend’s second place spot went to Scott Dorman who finished fifth in all five races.
In the final category for the weekend, Andrew Sarandis finished with a perfect record after winning every Improved Productions race he was involved with, including the Michael Rooke Memorial Trophy.
Scott Cook didn’t budge from second place for all five of the weekend’s races, finishing behind race one winner Max De Meyrick on Saturday, before Sarandis came in and took out his four races.
The CAMS South Australian Motor Race Championships returns to The Bend Motorsport Park for the next round of the Championship on 14 – 15 September.