James Short has continued his winning streak in the Grafton Sporting Car Club’s (GSCC) Hill Climb Series with his third straight victory in the club’s hill climb on the weekend.

 

More than 60 competitors from within the New South Wales northern region took part in the event, but it was Short, in his home built Formula Libre, who was too strong for the competition.

 

With each entrant getting four runs at the hill climb, Short posted his fastest time on his first attempt and was unable to better it over the next three runs.

 

However his time of 46.54 seconds proved enough to take out the win over eventual runner-up and fellow Formula Libre driver Dave Morrow, who recorded his best time of 48.17 seconds in the second run of the day, and like Short, couldn’t better it in the remaining two runs.

 

While Short has won the previous three hill climbs at the Mountain View Motor Sport Complex, he was more pleased with this weekend’s result due to the hassle free win.

 

“It was a really nice feeling to win the hill climb actually, especially in the current circumstances,” Short said.

 

“The car went really well once again, which is special for me because I have built it myself so to be producing results like this is fantastic. I’ll make some changes between now and the next round and make it even faster.

 

“In the lead up to the event, I wasn’t quite sure of how I would fare as there was a lot of a tough competition entered and I was a little nervous throughout because I started behind some of the other top guys and watching them take off really quick made me think they’ll catch me.

 

“I also couldn’t find the rhythm in the final three runs, but it was all okay in the end and I made it three wins for the year, so I am really happy.

 

“The Grafton Sporting Car Club has done really good job in putting on an event like this in the circumstances and the day was perfect. It couldn’t have been better so full credit to the club.”

 

While Short comfortably took out the win ahead of Morrow, it was a significantly closer affair for third as Stan Pobjoy edged out the best tin top entry of Todd Wedd and his 2010 Subaru WRX by just one tenth of a second.

 

Wedd had been faster on the first two runs of the day and marking his time of 48.85, before Pobjoy got his 48.75 on his third and final attempt, which Wedd was unable to beat.

 

Rounding out the top five was Newton Short, while the 17th placed Joanne Stanton was the fastest lady and 18-year-old Jason Durrington was the quickest junior, ranked 40th outright.