The Grafton Sporting Car Club (GSCC) will run its third motorsport event in two months this weekend with 65 competitors confirmed to line up for the hill climb series’ third round.

Taking place at the club’s Mountain View Motor Sport Complex on Sunday, competitors will get four attempts to post the fastest outright time or take out their respective class title.

With the GSCC now running its third event since COVID-19 restrictions were eased in New South Wales, organisers, officials and competitors have become accustomed to the measures put in place, in line with the Motorsport Australia’s Return To Race documentation.

However, with the New South Wales Government recently announcing a number of travel recommendations to reduce the transmission of the virus within the state, the club had to make some adjustments, but will still go ahead.

“When the announcement was made on Wednesday, the first thing we did was contact the people who live outside our region and inform them they could no longer attend,” GSCC President Graham Merry explained.

“There was a bit of a rush behind that process, but we got through pretty quickly and everyone was really understanding. Fortunately, we still have a strong number of local competitors still able to attend the event.

“We are actually going to have a fair few newcomers competing this weekend as well, which is good. Some of them are coming because they can’t get to any other events and some others just wanted to join the club and compete, so we must be doing something right.

“I think a lot of us feel lucky to be where we are in Northern NSW, because apart from being a beautiful part of the world, we haven’t had any outbreaks of COVID or any issues.

“The recommendations were limiting but not overly restrictive, so we were confident of running this weekend.”

As they have done so over the previous two months, the club will continue to implement COVID-19 safety measures during the event, with entrants to complete pre-documentation, as well as undergo temperature checks and social distancing during the event.

With no drivers from outside the region able to attend, local hero Daryl Small will be headlining the field and will be behind the wheel of the club’s 1990 Honda Prelude as a result of his car being out of action.

With limited spectators to be let into the event, Merry is confident it will be business as usual.

“We are limiting the number of spectators to enter to make sure we comply to the restrictions and we will be heavily enforcing social distancing,” Merry said.

“It’s important for us to make sure we are doing everything properly because we want to continue competing and as long as we’re doing the right thing, we’re fine.

“Our biggest concern this weekend will be the weather as July’s event was very wet so hopefully we get a bit looked after with some sunshine.”

The third round of the Grafton Sporting Car Club’s hill climb series takes place at the Mountain View Motor Sport Complex on 23 August.