The 21 February 2016 Khanacross and Motorkhana results

Racing has started again for the year with the Douglas Shire Motor Sports Association running round one of the 2016 Khanacross and Junior Motorkhana Championship last Sunday.

Being the first event for the year several drivers debuted new race cars including Shane Buchanan’s Toyota Prius, an x Cairns taxi, and Anthony Baldwin’s twin cab Hilux

The event was delayed for nearly two hours as an early morning shower made the track impassable. How ever once the sun and the cars hit the track it was not long before the track began to dry out and some fast times were recorded.

Competition at the top of the field was intense as the battle between 2015 club champion Greg Erwin, Australian rally champion Ross Dunkerton and the father and son duo of Stove and Ben Van der Brug saw the drivers pushing their cars to the limits.

Sitting in second place coming into the last run of the day and less than a second behind Ross, Greg’s title defence took a hit when he pushed his Nissan Micra just a little to hard, clipped the inside bank at the bottom of the tabletop and flipped the Micra onto its roof. Greg was unhurt but the Micra is going to need some work and is unlikely to be on the track for the next event in two weeks.

Ross went on to take the win in his Nissan Silva by three seconds ahead of Ben Van der Brug, with Steve a further two seconds back.
It was an impressive win by Ross as he had only got the car back on the road earlier in the week after Flynn crashed it Herberton last year.

Ben’s second place was also impressive as it was the first time (and maybe the last) that Ben had driven his dad’s car.

Greg Dunn’s off road buggy suffered electrical gremlins early in the day and then a blown turbo later on but still managed some impressive times and could be one to watch if he can sort out the reliability issues.

Also posting some fast times were Heath and Craig Barry with Heath once again beating his dad.

Zed Thackary and Ella Dunn competed in the junior motorkhana for the first time and despite having never driven before were soon giving the junior’s car a workout.