SWAN Hill Sporting Car Club’s (SHSCC) season officially wrapped up at Saturday’s presentation night with Neil Donnan being awarded 2019 club champion.
With each driver in contention, the D-class competitor accumulated 146 points across the 19 days of club racing throughout the year to claim the title.
Donnan finished 18 points clear of runner-up, C-class driver Glen King-Gee (128 points), while J-class driver Karli Vallence finished third (127 points).
King-Gee and Vallence took out their respective class championships, while Craig Ritchie (E-class), Kerry Graves (L-class) and Dylan McFarlane (W-class) were also awarded such honours.
SHSCC president Chris Gibson congratulated all members in what he said was a big year of racing with 44 drivers.
“It has been an incredible year with seven two-day events and four club challenge events with the Shepparton and District Car Club,” Gibson said.
“While many drivers returned to compete for another season, it was great to have new drivers take to the dirt and the feedback has been positive.”
Gibson said he’s proud of the work members put into the track this season, making improvements to run their first wet track event.
“In the past, we’ve had to cancel events due to rain, so this year we spent a lot of time working to improve our track to control wet spots,” Gibson said.
“For the first time, we were able to still run despite a wet track — in fact, we did that four times this year, which is something none of us were even expecting.
“We’ve picked up some more gear over the year and we’re hoping things will only get better with every season.”
The final round of their Swan Hill Autocross season was run on December 1, where 33 drivers put their cars to the test.
Gibson said the weather was far from expected on the first day of summer, but it made for an exciting and challenging test and tune event.
“We probably saved the best day of racing until last,” he said.
“There were some challenging moments to start with because light rain early made for some wet track conditions.
“Sheri Osmond lost her back wheel while driving and Dale Casey had his car airborne at one stage.
“But once the track dried up, lap times went from as far out as 190 seconds to the high 80’s as the grip from the track only increased with each lap.”
Casey was the overall winner of the day, while also taking out the seven-car W-class.
Donnan bested the four other drivers competing in D-class.
Despite Chris Gibson damaged a radiator to bring his day to a close early, he did enough to take out the E-class.
C-class belonged to Reg Johnson, Nathan Graves was victorious in J-class, Kerry Graves produced the win in L-class and Craig Williams was E-class’ victor.
