The 16th June 2019 - Khanacross results
After waiting six months for the track to dry out Douglas Shire Motor Sports Association club members finally got the chance to rev their engines once again as they hit the dirt for the first time in 2019.
Despite being the sixth round of the championship, it was the first time for the year as wet weather and a damaged track had forced the cancellation of the first five events.
Thanks to a grant from the Queensland Government Disaster Relief Fund and a days work by Trevor White from T&C Grader Hire, the track was in pristine condition, smooth and fast.
Early morning drizzle still made the track slippery to begin with but as the day progressed the track dried out and the cars were soon kicking up dust and posting some fast times.
Cairns driver Rick Ranscombe made a flying start to the year recording the fastest time on the first run of the day. Despite driving his spare Nissan Pulsar, Rick went on to post four more fastest times during the day to win the event four seconds ahead of defending champion Heath Barry.
Barry had been leading the event but a penalty on each of his last two runs saw him incur a ten second penalty dropping him to second spot.
Fresh from his Targa Tasmania success, Steve Van der Brug powered his V8 Nissan into third spot a further four seconds adrift.
Graeme Colls, Subaru and Trevor Thompson, BMW rounded out the top five.
Carl and Melanie Johanson debuted their new race car, a six cylinder Cortina. Despite it being largely untested it showed some impressive speed on the day with Carl finishing 11th outright. "That is my best result ever" said Carl after the race "and I wasn't even trying that hard, just trying to learn the car"
The junior class was won once again by Heath Barry with Josh Yendle and Seth Perry rounding out the top three.
This year Seth and his brother Cain along with Amber Yendle have all graduated from the junior motorkhana up to the bigger khanacross track and all three relished the chance to tackle the more challenging track.
Mackenzie Barry took out the ladies class ahead of Amber Yendle and Melanie Johanson.
The next event is the second and final round of the inter-club challenge against the FNQ Motor Sports Club on July 13&14. Club members are looking to regroup after being comprehensively beaten in the first round at Herberton earlier in the year.
“We won the trophy for the first time last year” said club president Bob Errey “and I am keen to see the club win it again this year but we will need to drive well to overhaul the points deficit from the first round”
