The Phillip Island Auto Racing Club (PIARC) has held its first major event for the year with the opening round of its annual Supersprints series running at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.
 
More than 80 drivers across 11 different classes competed in the sprint, getting multiple sessions to post the fastest time of the day.
 
Taking top honours for the event was the Gippsland Car Club's Dean Crooke, who steered his Hyper Racer X1 to a magnificent time of 1:34.1576 during his first session.
 
Right from the get go, Crooke was looking fast in the session and saved his best for the last lap when he posted a time that would remain unbeaten for the rest of the day.
 
Unfortunately, he was unable to get close to bettering his time in his remaining five sessions, however it was a comfortable win for him in the end.
 
Finishing in second place was another Hyper Racer X1 pilot in Luke Klaver.
 
Running against Crooke in the same sessions, Klaver’s fastest time came in his second session of the day as his fourth lap time of 1:36.4687  was enough to win the session by one tenth and firm his outright second place position – a place he stayed for the rest of the event.
 
While the Crooke grabbed the win by more than two seconds, the battle for the minor positions proved a much closer affair.
 
Only four tenths separated Klaver and the winner of the Modified over 3000cc class, Aleck Kazakovski who picked up his best time of 1:36.8129 on his second session of the day.
 
Click here to view results from the Sprint.
 
In addition to the supersprint were three racing categories – the RX8 Cup, the Circuit Excel Series and Superkarts.
 
The Circuit Excels once again had the biggest field of the three with the 48 drivers split across the Masters and Trophy classes – each of which got three races.
 
Both classes saw incredibly close competition and a number of drivers in contention of the round win, however each class had one outright winner.
 
For the Masters, it was Timothy Rowe who powered home to victory over motorsport veteran Jason Bargwanna thanks to his two wins in the second two races. 
 
Bargwanna took out the first win, but couldn’t stop Rowe in the race two and three as he finished behind him twice.
 
It was a similar story in the Trophy class, with eventual winner Aaron Hindle beating Harry Tomkins thanks to two race wins either side of Tomkin’s sole win.


In the RX8 Cup, Tom Shaw picked a comfortable clean sweep of four wins from four races.
 
With Matthew Chick and Justin Barnes locked in a tight dual for all four races and trading places, it allowed Shaw to gather a perfect set of results and claim the victory, while Chick managed to pip Barnes for second place after Barnes finished fourth in two races.
 
The final category of the weekend was the Superkarts and there was one driver who dominated the category’s four races - Brad Tremain.
 
Racing in the 125 Gearbox class, Tremain was in a league of his own as he comfortably won all four races – his smallest margin being four seconds in the opening race over Brad Stebbing.
 
Sanuja Perera was the other standout performer, winning the competitive 125 Max Light Class three times, while Oliver Bonaccorso was victorious on two occasions in the 125 Max Heavy Class as Jeremy Crust and Martin Anderson won the other two races.  
 
The next round of the SuperSprint at Phillip Island will be on 30 May to 1 June.