The Motorsport Australia Victorian State Circuit Championships began its 2022 season with a massive field of competitors taking part in the season opener.
 
Held at Sandown International Raceway, around 275 entries across 12 different categories made up the busy schedule as fans were treated to 44 sessions throughout the weekend.
 
Headlining the event was the Australian Formula Ford Series, which saw Jordyn Sinni claim the round win over a strong field of 36 competitors thanks to his pole position and race one and two wins.
 
Rounding out the top three competitors behind him was race three winner Cody Donald and series debutant Matthew Hillyer, while Richard Davison won all three Formula Ford 1600 (Kent) races.
 
While the race meeting had a national category on display, the biggest field for the weekend belonged to the Hyundai Excels where 39 cars battled it out.

 
Claiming top honours for the weekend was Hugo Simpson, who picked up wins in races two and three after finishing second behind Ethen Grigg-Gault in the opener. A challenging race two for Grigg-Gault saw him drop down the order and out of contention for the round win.
 
With the race one winner finishing the weekend in fifth, it opened up the door for Arron Hindle, Harry Tomkins and Ryan Phillips to fight it out for the minor positions - Hindle eventually finishing second by two points over Tomkins while Phillips was a further point off.
 
It was a similar story in Holden HQs as Perry Bekkers’ two wins was enough to secure him a victory over race one winner Andrew McLeod, although McLeod finished the remaining races just behind Bekkers to finish second for the weekend ahead of Andrew Magilton.
 
One of the closest battles from the weekend came within Historic Touring Cars where two wins to Darren Collins was enough for the Chevrolet Camaro driver to edge out Trevor Talbot for the round win.
 
Only two points separated the two Camaro drivers at the end of the weekend with Talbot winning the first outing before finishing second in the two remaining races.  
 
Sharing the iconic track with Historic Touring Cars were the BMW E30s and it was Alex Jory who dominated the 17 other drivers to come away with a clean sweep of wins.


While Brian Bourke comfortably sealed second place with three runner-up finishes, the battle for third was significantly closer as Geoffrey Bowles held on the podium position, despite finishing behind Simon Leach in race three.
 
Jory wasn’t the only one enjoying a perfect series of results over the weekend with Shawn Jamieson beating Daniel Johnson and Mark Sutherland in all three Saloon Cars races.
 
Improved Productions was the only other category to have one driver win all three races as Adam Poole steered his Holden Monaro to the round win over round runner-up Luke Grech-Cumbo.
 
In both the Sports Sedan and Formula Vee categories, the outright winning drivers fell just short of clean sweeps, but still showed their strength with two wins for the round.
 
Comfortably taking out top spot in Sports Sedans was MARC V8 Mazda 3 driver Tony Groves, while Reef McCarthy’s Formula Vee victory came down to the final race where he just edged out Jake Rowe to secure the round win.


The final category for the weekend were the MG & Invited British Sports Cars where Robin Bailey was victorious.
 
Having finished second behind Philip Chester in both races one and two, Bailey ended up with outright honours after Chester retired from the last race, leaving Keith Ondarchie to finish in second ahead of the third placed Michael Trathen.
 
The next round of the Motorsport Australia Victorian State Circuit Championships will be at Winton Motor Raceway on 26-27 March.