The battle on the track between local husband and wife Brett and Kate Slingsby will make for an interesting sub-plot when the Tamworth Sporting Car Club hosts Round 7 of the NSW Hillclimb Championships at Oakburn Park on Sunday.
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The two sit first and second, respectively, in their Group 3J Improved Production over 3000cc class, with two rounds remaining.
Around 45 drivers from across the state will tackle the Oakburn Park track, with cars ranging from open-wheeled formula cars to road registered cars and everything in between.
Matt Halpin will be one of the local hopes in the sports sedan class, and is hoping for, at the least, a top 10 finish.
The Tamworth round will be only the second he has raced in in the state series.
“This is the first year in many I’ve not competed in the all the rounds,” he said.
In saying that, the round he did compete in, which was at Kempsey, he came out on top.
Halpin has also won the three rounds of the Tri-Series he has raced in, although did have a bit of a hiccup in the last round, breaking the gear box of his Torana.
It’s good to go for Sunday though.
“Dave Rodgers from Tamworth Manual Transmission has fixed it up for me,” Halpin said.
Rodgers is incidentally also the TSCC president.
Halpin has “done reasonably well” on his home track.
“It’s a very technical track, it catches a lot of people out who think this is really simple at it’s not,” he said.
He said one of the vagaries of hill climbing is that while you do get a few runs, they are often hours apart.
“It’s a really difficult discipline to get everything right,” he said.
“Because you have those breaks in between, sometimes you can overthink it.”
He expects Mitch Craig and his highly modified Holden Gemini to be one of his biggest challengers. The Newcastle driver lead the series, from John Templeton (Canberra) and Phil Heafey (Sydney).
Racing starts at 9.30am, and entry is free for spectators.
