After the wet 2023 ampl auto Willunga Hillclimb that saw a reduced field of entrants due to entrants concerned with the not ideal conditions, the 2024 ampl auto Willunga Hillclimb was the opposite with nice weather and a full field of 130 entrants (some of them in shared cars). There was a large contingent of Subaru WRXs (in fact 31 entrants would be driving Subarus, including one Liberty and one Forester GT), as this event was the last motorsport event of the year for the Impreza WRX Owners Club of SA (WRXSA).
The first run of the day is traditionally a practice run or familiarisation run and that was noticeable as Dan Day trundled up the hill. Others, however, decided already to commit! Last year Dan Day’s 1000hp Subaru Sti C-Spec had developed an oil pressure issue from memory, and if the car was on song, it would give last year’s winner Douglas Johnson (Subaru WRX with similar horsepower) a real challenge. Nick Streckeisen was expected to be up there too at the pointy end with his Nissan R35 GTR. The end result for the top 10 shootout (a new initiative) would be decided on the accumulated times, not a fastest time of the day. This year’s event was different from pervious, in that the order was fastest to slowest….interesting choice…rather the excitement building for the spectators as the cars got faster and faster of other years. One unforeseen issue was the timing gear playing up adding over 4secs to the times.
With the real runs started on the second pass it was obvious Dan Day meant business, beating Douglas Johnson by 1.52secs, with Nick Streckeisen having the 3rd fastest a few seconds behind, followed by Julian Newton (Mitsubishi EVO 9RS) and Andrew Campbell (Nissan S14). The second run saw the same order except Campbell had replaced Newton with the 4th fastest time.
The 4th run up the hill saw Dan Day reduce his time again with 1min 20.71secs as he crept away from the field. There would be a big surprise for the 2nd fastest time. The 2WD Nissan S14 of Andrew Campbell crossed the line with an astonishing 1min 21.79secs run. Johnson was a few seconds in arrears as he couldn’t quite match it. Dan Day further reduced his time on the 5th run with a 1min 20.22sec run. Johnson threw everything he had at the run and got his best run so far of the day with 1min 22.37sec run for 2nd fastest for that run. Campbell couldn’t repeat his freak run and had to settle for a 1min 26.25sec time, which was good enough for 3rd fastest. Last, the 6th, of the “minor round” runs before the Top 10 had been decided for the Shootout. Dan Day dropped a small margin on his previous run but still a fair bit ahead of 2nd fastest Johnson. Campbell was 3rd fastest, Streckeisen 4th fastest and Newton 5th fastest.
By the time the Top 10 Shootout was due to start, the timing issue had been sorted. Fastest time wins all. Top 10 results saw Dan Day (2013 Subaru Sti C-Spec) smash the field, with a magnificent 1min 14.74 run! Douglas Johnson (1999 Subaru WRX) claimed the 2nd spot with a time of 1min 16.95sec. Third spot on the podium belonged to the surprise packet of Andrew Campbell (2WD 1995 Nissan S14) 1min 20.74sec. The remainder were as follows: 4th Nick Streckeisen (2008 Nissan R35 GTR), 5th Julian Newton (Mitsubishi EVO 9RS), 6th Damian Brand (1997 Subaru Sti), 7th Oliver Taylor (2018 Audi RS3), 8th Oscar Matthews (1999 Mitsubishi EVO V1), 9th Luke Bosman (2014 Mitsubishi EVO). Unfortunately Harrison Lodge (Mitsubishi EVO) was a DNF.
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Below is just a random selection of each entrant of the 1st and 2nd runs.
1st Run
2nd Run
