Thomas Hamlett has taken out the latest two rounds of the LF Performance CAMS State Speed Event Series after dominating the competition at the Collie Motorplex Circuit.
With two rounds taking place across the weekend, Hamlett was too strong for the 55 other competitors, grabbing the fastest times from the first laps and never letting his lead go for both rounds.
In Saturday’s round, Hamlett’s time of 1:09.7108 on the opening lap set the pace early as he was the only one to break the one minute and 10-second barrier.
Completing only five timed laps out of six runs, the Hamlett got his fastest time on his final lap of the day, shaving two seconds off his first time to win with a time of 1:07.6001
Remarkably, the next best competitor’s best time was more than four seconds slower as Cosi Sorgiovanni’s 11th and final lap of 1:11.6854 secured a comfortable second place for the round.
The battle for third between Brent Matthews and Rhyan Shapkaris went down right to the wire as Matthews pipped Shapkaris on his final lap after posting a time two-tenths of a second faster.
On the second day, Hamlett picked up where he left off and continued to post the best times in the field, only this time he was much faster than the day before
Hamlett shot out of the blocks early breaking the one minute and six-second barrier and stayed within the second for 10 of his 16 recorded lap times before ending the day with an unofficial lap record time of 1:06.1333.
As he had done in the previous round, Sorgiovanni claimed a well deserved second place, albeit being three seconds slower than the leader, as well as being the only other driver to break the one minute and 10-second barrier in the process.
Sorgiovanni’s fastest lap time of 1:09.1845 was three seconds faster than third place, which was easily claimed by Gareth George. A further six seconds behind George was the weekend’s most entertaining battle as eight drivers finished within one second of each other for fourth place.
At the top of that list was Rick Grigsby, the highest-ranked tin-top driver grabbing fourth after his lap time was just over three-tenths of a second faster than both Robin Mullett and Ray Ferrari, who both finished with two-hundredths of a second of each other.
While the timesheets made for interesting reading across the whole weekend, the most notable result came in the form of series leader Marcel Every, who suffered a mechanical failure early on Saturday and was out for the remainder of the round, putting his title celebrations on hold for at least one more round.
The next round of the LF Performance CAMS State Speed Event Series takes place at Jack’s Hill on 9 November for the second last meeting of the year.