The Motorsport Australia Tasmanian Circuit Championship’s third round for the year has been completed with more than 100 drivers competing at Baskerville Raceway on Saturday.
With seven categories getting three races each, the head-to-head racing proved quite entertaining as there was very little separating the contending drivers in each competition.
The only two series to buck the trend was the Snug Butchery Hyundai Excels with winning driver Josh Webster claiming a clean sweep of race wins and Mal Lee in the Sports and Racing Cars category.
Remarkably, it was an almost unchanged top five for all three Hyundai Excel races with eventual runner-up Jeremy Bennett, podium placed Callum Mitchell and Adrian Jones all finishing second to fourth in each race, while the only change saw Peter Kingston finish fifth in the final race ahead of Charles Parker, who had rounded out the top five in the first two races.
For the Sports and Racing cars category, it was an unchanged top three for all each races as Lee steered his Clubman PBR to three wins over Phil Sutton in second and Tayla Heath in third.
While he may have picked up the most points in the SRT Logistics Regularity, the win didn’t come easy to Brett Mansfield who topped the event’s largest field in both official sessions in the afternoon.
Though the category’s first two sessions were officially untimed, Mansfield didn’t click into gear for either session, as Danny Spain and Paul Giddings looked strongest. However when it came down to actually scoring points, Mansfield proved too good over the rest of the field and took victory over his closest rival in runner-up Bruce Thomas.
Only one point separated Julian Gill and Ian Richardson for the final podium place as the former edged out the latter in the last laps on final session.
Trendy Cut Meats Sorell Formula Vee winner Callum Bishop enjoyed multiple race victories across the event with the Geberb driver claiming wins either side of the second placed Wade McLean’s sole win for the day, while Michael Vaughan secured third outright after Chris Neil missed the middle race.
The Stateline Freight combined Sports GT A, B & Sport Sedans saw two separate race winners over the course of the day with Roger White guiding his Nissan Skyline to two race victories.
White's biggest challengers came through the likes of race one winner Adam Garwood and Stephen Noble who was the round's most consistent performer after being the only driver to place in the top three for each race.
There were four drivers in contention for outright honours in the 20-car Wells Bodyworks Historic Touring Cars, Improved Production and Sports GT C joint field, but only one victor as race two winner Brad Chick took outright bragging rights
Behind the wheel of the Holden HSV GT5, Chick was the only one of the four drivers to end every race on the podium with other race winners Jason House and Jared House each finishing with a fourth place to add to their podium and win.
Matthew Grace was the other driver who offered a challenge for top spot but was unable to amass the right results after finishing the weekend with a second, third and fourth place.
It was a similar story in the Don Towing Holden HQs as the round victory went to the only driver to convert each race start to a podium.
Despite winning just the third race, Phil Ashlin managed to take out the round ahead of race two winner Andrew Toth ahead race one winner Otis Cordwell.
Cordwell looked favourite to take out the round until he ended up seventh in the weekend's second race, which saw his round win hopes dashed, allowing Ashlin to gather vital points before securing the round in the final race.