Dean Amos has won the Eureka Landscapes Motorsport Australia Queensland Hill Climb Championship title for the third time in four years.
With 66 competitors contesting the annual state championship round at Mount Cotton over the weekend, Amos proved too strong once again for the competition, going almost one second faster than his closest rival.
Taking out second place was last year’s champion Dean Tighe, while Warwick Hutchinson rounded out the podium.
Having won his two previous outings at Mount Cotton, Amos should been full of confidence heading into the event after claiming back-to-back victories in the Mantic Clutch Motorsport Australia NSW Hillclimb Championship earlier this year.
However a crash at another hill climb earlier last month forced Amos to fully rebuild his car within three weeks and get it to Mount Cotton – a feat he achieved at the eleventh hour.
While he had not tested the car since the rebuild, it didn’t take long for the New South Welshman to stamp his authority on the competition with his eventual winning time of 36.16 seconds coming on just his second run of the day.
For the remaining four runs, no one could top the winning time and Amos came away with his third consecutive victory in the state championship after winning it in 2018 and 2019, before missing last year’s due to COVID-19.
Having posted the fastest outright time on the first run, Tighe was unable to reclaim the lead from Amos as his best effort came on the third run of the day – a 37.09 second run comfortably securing him a well-deserved second place.
On the same set of runs, South Australian David Mahon produced his best time for the day to move into third, only for his 37.92 to get trumped by Hutchinson on the next run.
Finishing in the exact same position last year, Hutchinson was locked in a tight battle with Mahon for the middle stint of the day, but secured third place with a 37.65 second time on the fourth run.
Although Tighe and Hutchinson did well to finish on the podium, the day belonged to Amos who continued to dominate on the famous hill climb course.
“It felt really good to win this one if I am honest, because it was really tough to get it all together,” Amos said.
“After crashing the car in Kempsey three weeks ago, which happened because of a rear left suspension failure and all the wheels were torn off on impact, dad and I worked on it every night for three weeks – only to finish and load it up at
2:30am the day before.
“I had very little trust in the car because we didn’t know how it would go and because of that crash – however once I did the first run, I regained my confidence and ended up posting the winning time on the next one.
“The car just seemed to work and we were rewarded with the effort that went in. I probably didn’t drive to the best of my ability but I still did enough to win.
“I really like competing at Mount Cotton. The guys you are up against are really tough and you have to earn your win – there are no handouts, so I am really happy.”
Other notable results from the weekend saw Mahon awarded with the most consistent performer, the ninth placed Greg Tebble steer his Van Diemen FF2000 to the Hamilton Trophy for the Best Historic Vehicle Performance and Vince Appleby Trophy winner Ross
Mackay in the Ford Escort Mk 1, who was the fastest Sedan drier in 10th outright.