The Australian Hillclimb Championship will be held in S.A at Collingrove Hillclimb Track Friday 15th to Sunday 17th of October.

This year the only VW's competing will travel from NSW.

The only beetles there will be driven by Greg Ward and Myself. We are drastically outnumbered by Escorts.

Stan and Brenda Pobjoy have entered the open wheeler but will have there work cut out beating a very determined Peter Gumley. Peter is chasing his 10th Australian Hillclimb Championship victory.

If you come to watch say G'day

Heath

Good luck to all the guys and girls running. I hope all the VW's pick up the prizes in their respective classes/outright and bring the trophies back to NSW.

Stan wont be going as he has to much on at the moment with engine building.

Greg and heath i would love to see your cars in action and will try to come out as i won't be able to see your cars in NSW, do you know what times you will be competing??? As i have Tennis to play Saturday arvo. I am putting my car together and would love to see yours in the flesh. Cheers Hope to see you soon.

It seems a shame that there will be no SA Beetles there, why is that? Surely there's a few which could have run. I might find the time to get down there and watch, but probably not.

Good luck Heath & Greg at the Aussie titles.

They say quality over quantity, and two very tuff beetles piloted by two hard peddlers will give those Escorts something to think about.

Cheers Col

Anyone have any news as yet.

Cheers Col

I went along and saw Heath and Greg. Great day, it was my first event and really loved what i saw. heath was really ripping up the track. I didn't see his last runs but he was leading his class when i left.

Congratulations to Heath. He is the new Australian Imp Pro 1601-2000cc Hillclimb Champion for 2010. Well done Heath. Greg had a mixed bag. The new car granaded a drive shaft on his first run up the hill on Saturday (which was dry) and it took the rest of the day and a bit of the next to get it out and the new one back in. Sunday was wet (unlike Sat). Greg got a few runs in on the Sunday and he is more then happy with the performance of the car and engine. He managed to go his fastest around there with the new combo. Congrates to both guys. Hopefully both guys could get on later when they return and fill us in.

any videos...

Wow, Heath Campbell Australian Champ.
Super drive mate, well done.

Cheers Col

Thanx for the vids bat69, do you or anyone else have any final results?

Cheers Col

love it ......LETS SEE SOME MORE SOON

Thanks for the encouragement and kind words.

Its taken a while but I’ve put together my account of the Collingrove Australian Titles.

I arrived at Anguston late afternoon on the Thursday.......beautiful weather shorts and tee-shirt stuff. Quickly set up a tent for me, and marquee for the Beetle. Settled in around the camp fire with many wiry travellers (camp fire seems traditional). We discussed with much disbelief the weather forecast of a cold southerly change with gale force winds and top temps of 12 degrees..........seemed unlikely. It was my first trip to Collingrove Hillclimb Track good weather would make leaning the track much easier.

I woke in the middle of the night with the tent being dufferted by howling winds.........reluctantly got out of bed to add extra ropes and pegs to anything you wanted to stay standing. Marquees that were now cart wheeling across the paddock.

Friday morning our enthusiasm was now being rained upon. Friday Practice was varying degrees of wet. To learn the wet track was proving to be challenging. Best I could do in the wet was a high 37 sec run. Greg and pit crew worked frantically all Friday to complete the assembly of his new beetle.

Saturday morning was well, not what we wanted, the same as Friday……..Wet. As the day progressed the weather improved, and so the times. Best I could do on a cold and mostly dry track was 35.35sec. Greg had worked hard to complete the car. Only to be dealt the cruel blow of destroying a CV joint on his first run. By the time the S.A VW network had located 2 new shafts and Greg installed them the day was done.

Sunday I woke with excitement blue sky and no breeze…a lot warmer than the previous 2 days. It started to rain during race briefing…..grrr …I should have been happy I was winning my class and if it rained all day no one would get near Saturdays times. But I wanted to go racing and see how low we could get the times if the track was good. The rain stopped and the track dried, but unfortunately the top 1/3rd of the track was hosed down with oil from a fractured sump. What we were gaining in the 1st two splits at the bottom of the hill we were loosing at the top in very slippery esses. At one stage we couldn’t even slow the cars up enough to turn into the return road. It was good to see Greg getting track time and around the pits with a big smile on his face not grease on his hands. As Greg became more familiar with the new car his times got progressively better, Greg and I had a side battle going for the fastest first split (drag race split from the start line to the top of the 1st hill) as shown in the youtube footage. As the track improved we both got quicker. In the end I think I got him by as little as 0.2sec. Likewise our overall times for the day fell. My best for Sunday was 35.34 sec. 1/100th off Saturday’s time but made up of much quicker first 2 spits and much slower 3rd split. Greg’s best was 36.86sec, a commendable time considering how little track time he’d had.

The times were good enough to secure my first Australian Championship class win and bloody hell wasn’t I happy about that. Coincidently enough I had been kept honest all weekend by another North Coast resident, Steve Sauer who had one of the best drives I’ve seen in a while. Greg secured 4th place. There were 120 entrants; Greg placed 68th overall and myself 46th. We were both quicker in first splits and overall time than a 2008 model Porsche GT3RS and many hot EVO’s. I think there’s still plenty of life left in the good old beetles.

Collingrove is an excellent track and I’d love to go back …….though can’t see it happening anytime soon, it’s a dam long way from Coffs Harbour.

Heath

Congrats Heath and thanks for the story.

Great report Heath.

Sounds like the long trip was well worth the effort.

I look forward to racing with & against the Australian Champ in 2011.

Cheers Col

congratulations Heath , well done mate .
Where was Adam Debiasi and the other VW's done there .
I had planned to take my sports sedan down this year for the aussie titles , but due to the amount of time I spent before Warwick drags preparing my turbo oval , I just didnt get the time to prepare the sports sedan this year .
It is a credit to both you guys for making the effort to travel so far for the event . Well done......