Dean Amos has retained his title as the number one hill climber in Queensland after taking out the Cottons Creations Motorsport Australia Queensland Hillclimb Championship on the weekend.
 
Behind the wheel of a Gould GR55B, Amos proved too good for the competition, beating the second placed Dean Tighe by almost half a second with a time of 35.81 seconds, while Warwick Hutchinson rounded out the top three a further second off the runner-up.
 
With 56 crews entered in the state championship event, there were a handful of drivers that could offer a challenge to the reigning champion, however Tighe was the only one who really stood any chance.
 

The Queenslander started off strong having posted the fastest time on the opening run, however Amos clicked into gear on his second run and improved on his first time by two and half seconds to charge to the lead.

Amos’ third attempt saw him go sub 36 seconds for the first time of the day with a lightning quick 35.90 second run, while Tighe was one and a half seconds slower.
 
Tighe was able to go faster than Amos on the fourth run and steered his Empire Wraith to his fastest time of the day, however the 36.28 second run still wasn't close to the lead time.
 
Unfortunately, Tighe couldn’t better his best time on the remaining two runs, while Amos shaved off a tenth on the penultimate run to seal the victory.


As for the remaining spot on the podium, Hutchinson was quite untroubled throughout the day and his best time of 37.34 seconds never looked like being beaten by Victorian champion David Mahon.
 
Mahon was the last of the drivers who had any real shot of winning and although he was almost a second off Hutchinson, his 38.20 second run was still comfortably the fourth best with the next best time shared by Douglas Daniels and Neil Lewis – both drivers dropping 42.04 second runs on their fourth go on the course.
 
While the top eight spots belonged to Formula Libre open-wheelers, the honour of the best of the rest went to Gavin Taylor, who guided his Volkswagen Golf to a time of 44.46 seconds and ninth overall.


Remarkably, Taylor looked like having lost the position to VW Beetle driver Wayne Penrose, however he ended up snatching ninth place back off Penrose on his final run with just one hundredth of a second the difference between the two at the end of the event.
 
In addition to being the fastest sedan, Taylor’s Golf also took out the Hot Hatch award.
 
Other notable results saw Michael Larymore and his Toyota MR2 awarded with the fastest sports car and 19th outright after producing a time of 46.92 seconds, while Pauline Graham was three places higher and was the fastest female for the day.
  
The MG Car Club of Queensland now turns its attention to the national stage with Mount Cotton to host the Motorsport Australia Hill Climb Championship in October.