Last Round of Championship heated up over the weekend

With a number of championships on the line the struggle for supremacy was apparent in early qualifying with John Van Gilst taking it out followed by Dean Crosswell and Coleby Cowham.

Coleby Cowham was driving his newly purchased AU Falcon and showed why many in the field have great wraps on the young up and coming star, Coleby in previous seasons had run an older EA Falcon which always showed competitive times. The Class has bought through a number of up and coming stars of the years including Grant Gatland, Justin Garioch and Nathan Garioch to name a few.

Unfortunately Coleby threw- away a great opportunity to make up places with a false start and also being caught in an incident with Dean Crosswell. John Van Gilst went on to win with a pretty big margin, this giving him the QLD Saloon Car Series championship which was run over 8 rounds. There were tassles throughout the field especially at the back where new competitors Eddie Akkari, George Uren and Chris Lulan had fun learning the layout and how to get their cars through the new track.

The second event was a scratch race over 4 laps and saw some good passing moves however John Van Gilst showed his grit to win again by quite a margin. Coleby Cowham, Lindsay Kearns and Gary Bonwick showed real pace and fought out for the minor places with Coleby getting third and Gary Bonwick just holding out Lindsay Kearns.

The final round of the QLD CAMS round was next up with Dean Crosswell pushing his VT Commodore to the lead and defending aggressively to hold off Lindsay Kearns, who snuck through John Van Gilst’s defences late in the race. This 2nd place was enough for Lindsay Kearns to be crowned the CAMS State Champion.

3/10th a second gap was all that separated the top 5 competitors throughout the race on lap times. Coleby Cowham made up 11 places from last to 5th to ensure that his weekend was not lost. Jonathan Fishburn drove a splendid race to ensure his won the overall Saloon Series for the original cars after succumbing earlier to a blown head gasket.

In the last and final race of the day and after wrapping up a big year in racing some drivers obviously clocked off early as a couple of incidents marred a great year of racing with leading contenders being pushed off the track. There were some entertaining driving by the new drivers at the back of the field and we hope to see them back in the new year. Chris Berry was unusually off the pace and no matter how many punches he threw could not maintain his early pace in the series and came up with 3rd in series.

This years championship was contested by 32 competitors and we understand over 5 new cars are being built as we speak, therefore we are looking forward to a big 2011 of racing.

Once again we have to thank Sean Rose and his company All Auto Recycling for sponsoring the year along with the club president John Townsend for sacrificing a number of hours to make the class what it is today.

Final Standings for year:

Lindsay Kearns - QLD CAMS Championship

John Van Gilst - QLD Saloon Car Series Champion

Jonathan Fishburn - QLD Series Car Series Original Champion