David Mahon has produced a masterclass performance at Collingrove over the weekend with a dominant victory in the Motorsport Australia SA Hillclimb Championship.
More than 85 competitors from around the state were in attendance for the two-day state hill climb and all eyes were on Mahon in who went into the event as favourite after a solid run of recent form.
Drivers were able to have 13 attempts at the hill climb course, but by the end of Saturday, Mahon had already sealed the event after beating his closest rivals, Allan and Derek Foster, on his first run of the day.
Some minor issues prevented Mahon from improving on his time over the next few runs, but the champion eventually clicked into a gear and notched up his event winning time of 28.21 seconds on the ninth run.
With the Fosters not in attendance on Sunday, they were unable to offer Mahon more of a challenge, but their times were still good enough to secure second and third respectively, with Derek’s 29.38 bettering Allan’s 30.62 first run.
Still unsatisfied, Mahon kept chipping away at the 28 second barrier and he finally broke it on his final run of the weekend during the Top 12 Shootout, when he posted an outstanding time of 27.98 seconds.
“I was over the moon. It was fantastic,” Mahon said.
“With the Fosters not there on Sunday, I experimented with a few suspensions settings and I improved a bit in the end. I managed to crack into 27 second bracket which was what I was trying to do all weekend, but it’s just so hard to do it.
“There is some more in the car though. I have found a couple of issues that I can could improve on. We have a meeting on 11 October, so I am just going to tune the suspension a bit better and have a crack at it again then.
“It’s a pity the interstaters didn’t come. I was hoping I could break the record and get in the 27s because I didn’t want people saying I won the event because I didn’t have the competition, but with the times that I produced, I would have been up there anyway so I am comfortable with the win.”
Finishing two and a half seconds behind Mahon in the Shootout was David Pfeiffer, who had been strong all weekend and had come within two tenths of snatching third place from Allan Foster in the outright competition.
Rounding out the shootout podium was Nathan Green after the Nissan Skyline driver just beat David Whiteside as a result of class calculation. Whiteside didn’t end the event with nothing though as he knocked off challenges from Guy Chet and Bradley De Luca to grab fifth place in the outright championship.
While De Luca fell just three tenths short of the Top 12 Shootout podium himself, he didn’t go home empty handed with the Mallock U2 21B pilot setting a new time record for the A Sports Cars Open/Closed up to 1600cc class.
De Luca was one of six drivers to enter the record book with Anthony Norris, Paul Healey and Joshua Axford joining Green and Mahon in setting the fastest times in their respective classes.