Rod Bender has claimed the 2021 Motorsport Australia Tasmanian Hill Climb Championship title after producing a huge victory over the event’s 40 competitors.
With the Club Motori Italia run event taking place at Baskerville Raceway, Bender proved too strong for the rest of the field, posting the fastest time in all four of his timed runs up the course.
Driving his Radical SR3 in a hill climb for the first time ever, Bender didn’t have such an easy day as the time sheets might have suggested with the 55-year-old having multiple issues on the start line during his early runs.
However he overcame those issues to post his event-winning time of 41.74 seconds, almost three and half seconds faster than the second placed Nathan Oliver.
His time also set a new record in the process, with Bender going one and a half seconds faster than the previous top recorded time.
After coming close in previous years and working extremely hard to overcome a severe illness, Bender was thrilled to be able to come away with state title, paying tribute to his supporters via social media.
“Early in 2017, I made the decision to purchase a sports car or open wheeler with the single ambition being to one day win the Tasmanian Hillclimb Championship,” Bender wrote.
“I eventually decided to purchase a Radical SR3 RSX and the car arrived in Tassie in February 2018. I spent a year of spare time tidying it up and fiddling with it, had a stupidly busy year at work in 2019, and unfortunately was diagnosed with bladder cancer in early 2020 for which I’m still having treatment.
“I managed a 41.74 second time on my third run of the day, taking out the 2021 Tasmanian Hillclimb Title. That’s over one and half seconds faster than anyone has ever been over that course and I can’t explain how good that felt after a three-year build-up.
“I have many people to thank for their support in making this happen, and the first one on that list is my wife, Fiona.
“A special thanks to Joshua Peacock at Radical Australia, my pit crew Roger and Danton Evans, Patrick Dooley and David Quinn, Justin Green and George V who have done some speccy fabrication work for me and finally, all my hill climb friends. It’s been great to meet so many other people who are afflicted by the same sickness.”
As Bender managed to be in league of his own at the top of the time sheets, the battle for second was significantly closer with less than one second the difference between three cars.
With Oliver eventually taking out that honour, the Mazda RX8 pilot had trailed David McCullagh for the majority of the day, ultimately posting his best time of 45.14 seconds on his fourth run.
Before that, McCullagh in the Subaru WRX had only occupied second place for a short period as his best time came on his third attempt – a 45.51 second run good enough to eventually keep him in third place over Ben Newman and his 45.90 second time.
Just behind the four fastest drivers, another intense battle took place for a top five finish as Brad Van Der Drift steered his Nissan 200SX took out that honour on his sixth and final run of the event.
Van Der Drift’s eleventh-hour heroics came at the expense of Omar Hasan, who had been fifth for the whole event until that last run – his 46.71 second attempt beaten by just one tenth of a second.
Hasan didn’t go home empty handed though as his orange Toyota Yaris GR was voted as the event’s best presented vehicle.
Other notable results for the day saw Ian Cunningham and his Morris Minor awarded with the official driver of the day, while Taylor Wilczynski won class C in his 1600 Toyota MR2 in his first ever motorsport event.
Class results
Class A Darryl Bennett
Class B Leigh Ford
Class C Taylor Wilczynski
Class D Ben Newman
Class E Nathan Oliver
Class F David McCullagh
Glass G Rod Bender
Italian A Geoff Storr
Italian B Mark Butcher
Best Presented Omar Hasan
Driver of the Day Ian Cunningham
