Ray Hislop has won the 2019 Improved Production Nationals in style having led the 31-car-field from start to finish in the final race.

 

Headlining the final round of the CAMS Tasmanian Circuit Championship at Baskerville Raceway, the category had drivers from around the country compete alongside local Tasmanians in the championship's regular events.

 

When it came to the main event, it was local boy Hislop who steered his Ford BF Falcon to a four second victory despite a number of Queenslanders and Victorians making the trip to the apple isle.

 

Just four seconds behind Hislop was one of the main landers as 2019 Queensland Over 2 Litre winner Zac Hudson put in a terrific effort in the opening 10 laps to climb from eighth to second, where he remained for the rest of the race.

 

The battle for third took place 23 seconds behind Hudson and was much closer with just three-tenths the difference between Tasmanians Matthew Grace and Leigh Forest. Rounding out the top five half a second behind Forest was Victorian Robert Braune. 

 

Despite the Improved Production Cars entertaining the fans as the headline act, their five support categories did just as a good job with high octane racing across the weekend.

 

On top of Hislop’s dominant performance, there was only two other clean sweeps throughout the weekend with two drivers in the Stateline Freight Sports GT A, B, C, & Sports Sedans claiming maximum points.

 

Liam Hooper from the category’s GT A class and Brett O'Shea in the Sports Sedans won everything there was to win. Four consecutive wins to Honni Pitt saw her take the Sports GT B class and Troy Wood won the Sports GT Cs.

The closest results of the weekend though came in the form of the first category to finish up with drivers in Baskerville Regularity getting seven runs to accumulate as much points as they could.

 

In the end, it came down to three drivers with only one point separating the top two and it was Darren Stoward who took out the victory after replacing Wayne Lamont in top spot after the final run.

 

It was a disappointing final run for Lamont, who went in the final run as leader, but the Holden Commodore driver finished with eight points less than Stoward and as a result, he dropped down to second – three points ahead of Brian Russell.

 

In the Don Towing HQ Holdens, Andrew Toth took advantage of Queenslander Brandon Madden’s absence from the final two races to secure a comfortable round win over Otis Cordwell and Joe Rattray.

 

Toth had finished behind Madden in the category’s first five races but with Madden unable to complete the final two, Toth took out the double points race win which all but confirmed his victory.

 

Callum Bishop was just one win short of a perfect weekend, grabbing six wins out of the Southern Cross Televisions’ Formula Vee.

 

With Bishop easily sewing up first place, the battle for second involved Darren Easterbrook, Chris Neil and Michael Vaughan as the trio traded places all weekend.

 

However With Neil and Vaughan each producing one DNF,  Easterbrook’s consistency earned him second place ahead of Neil who finished ahead of four of the five of the seven races.

 

Like Bishop, Snug Butchery Hyundai & Historic Touring Cars winners Michael Cross and Callan Thomas each finished short of perfect runs in their respective classes.

 

Thomas ended the Hyundai class ahead of Jamie Keeling and Callum Mitchell having won all but three races, while Cross was the best in the Historic Touring Cars having won all but one race.

 

John Douglas and Leigh Woolley rounded out the top three for the class.