South Australian Hill Climb competitors united at Mount McKenzie on weekend as the Sporting Car Club of South Australia (SCCSA) hosted the third round of the 2023 Ray Pank Winter Cup. 

More than 70 competitors took to the cold and slippery Collingrove Hill Climb on Sunday as they looked at posting the fastest time of the day across eight individual runs of the 685-metre course. 

In typical fashion, it was David Mahon coming out on top after a dominant display in the challenging conditions as he guided his Dallara Hayabusa to three individual times that would have all been enough to take the outright victory.    


In the end, his time of 29.57 seconds on the sixth run was enough to lead second-place runner Harrison Lodge by more than three seconds.  

While he missed out on the outright win, Lodge led a competitive group of 3C 4WD Rally Cars to take class victory despite being relatively new to the popular Mount McKenzie circuit.  


Recent Collingrove Challenge Trophy Series winner, Harry Pfeiffer continued his good form by rounding out the top three with a time of 33.05 seconds - just three tenths off Lodge.  

It was a tight-knit battle for fourth place, with Alexander Rowley finishing a mere two-hundredths of a second ahead of fellow 4WD entrant in Paul Healey. 

It was an entertaining fight for the remaining top 10 positions behind Healy with the following six drivers separated by less than a second.  


Nathan Green went on to win the battle for sixth, edging out a previous round winner David Coombe and an impressive Bradley De Luca, while Matthew Cowie and Matthew Benneche rounded out the top 10 within four hundredths of a second of each other.  

Unfortunately, Alexander Wilson narrowly missed out on cracking the top 10 with an 11th place outright finish, but he didn’t walk away empty handed as his best time of 25.02 seconds was more than enough to claim top honours in the Improved production class ahead of Toben Rumpf. 

Another class winner on the day was Sean Halter in the 2WD Sports Sedan and Sports Cars 3501 and over, taking the honours while also amassing a 12th place outright to finish ahead of the sole 3D Sports Sedans runner, Geoffrey Vardon. 


Next was Allan Nitschke in the Sports Sedans class, putting in an impressive stint to beat Dean Nitschke by just over one second.  

Competitors will now prepare for the final round of the season next month, where a 2023 champion will be crowned.  

The final round of the Ray Pank Winter Cup will take place at the Collingrove hill Climb Circuit on 20 August.