Barrington blitz for brilliant Ben
Wednesday 09 October, 2019
Photos: North West Car Club
More than 40 cars have turned out to the North West Car Club’s popular Precision Exhaust Lake Barrington Hillclimb as Benjamin Newman took out top honours in style.
Behind the wheel of the Subaru WRX, Newman was too strong for the 44-car field, posting the fastest time in all five of his runs.
Newman started the day off strong, grabbing a solid 1:38.82 in his first run and he continued to improve his time as the day went on, shaving off three seconds to finish with an event winning 1:35.83.
“I was really happy to win. It was just a fun day with a good bunch of blokes and cars and I'm looking forward to getting back up there again,” Newman said.
“It’s always a good event up there because has a really nice setting next to the lake but it’s always a challenge. There are about 33 corners across the 2kms, which can be hard to remember and get it right.
“A couple of the young guys were nipping up the hills in Evos which created a healthy rivalry in the early stages, but I was going after the all-time record and unfortunately I was two tenths off so I have unfinished business in regards to that record.”
Coming in second was one of Newman’s young Evo rivals with Daniel Little’s second run time of 1:38.87 earning him runner-up honours, one second ahead of another Subaru pilot in Tyler Page in third.
Just over half a second behind Page was Light Car Club of Tasmania’s Nathan Oliver, the Mazda Rx8 driver sneaking past Igor Van Gorwen on his final run of the day to claim fourth spot by three tenths.
While Mitchell Munday secured sixth spot on just his second run of the day, the entertaining battles were in place behind him with just seven-hundredths of a second separating Nick Creese and James Lonergan for seventh and eighth respectively.
It was an even smaller margin to decide the bottom of the top 10 as Daniel Whiteway finished just three-hundredths of a second faster than Kerry Luck - Whiteway’s Nissan Silvia also taking out the top prize for the best presented vehicle.