Weerasooriya clocks fastest timing

S.M. Jiffrey ABDEEN - Kandy Sports corr. and P. Rajaratnam, Nuwara Eliya Group corr.

Hill stormer Nishan Weerasooriya driving an Alpha Mitsubishi Evolution 9 timed 36.065 seconds to clock the fastest timing of the day at the 75th Anniversary Celebrations of the Mahagastota Speed Hill climb organised by the Ceylon Motor Sports Club and worked off at the Mahagastota Estate track at Blackpool in Nanu Oya before a large and enthusiastic crowd.

This was in the Super Cars event in which ten cars participated and Nishan Weerasooriya gave a delightful exhibition of top class driving, skilfully negotiating the corners and quick changes of gears with hardly any loss of time.

The last run for the day was to be by Nishan Weerasooriya and by that he had completed victory and he made use of this run to perform his victory lap by making a cool drive with the headlights on and shutters open and music on to acknowledge the others of the crowd.

But this event was hard fought with around 800 milliseconds separation the first four competitors. Young Darin Weerasinghe second with 36.626 seconds, Romani de Silva third with 36.630 seconds and Dinesh Deheragoda fourth with 36.861 seconds. Rohan de Silva with a timing of 37.550 seconds in the Modified Formula event clocked the fastest timing for formulas.

Improved

He would have improved on this had he not lost time at the Wakefield corner where there was a lot of reviving of the engine and there was a delay in shifting the gears.

But the surprise winner of the second formula event was Dilan Seneviratne in only his third run at Mahagastota, he beat the more fancied Rohan de Silva by less than a second with a timing of 38.491 seconds. But this up and coming formula driver was full of praise for Rohan de Silva as it was the formula ace who helped him and encouraged him to perform.

In fact Rohan de Silva had not only provided him with a formula car to run but also with all other facilities.

Indika Gurusinghe clocked the fastest timing for motor cycles with a time of 39.357 seconds pushing the record holder Shafraz Junaid who timed 39.590 seconds into the second place in the open event for motor cycles. But Shafraz reversed the results in the Racing Motor Cycles upto 450 cc with a timing of 39.501 seconds and Indika Gurusinghe timed 39.952 seconds in this event.

There was just one spill during the day when Kandan Parameswaran's Austin Mini lost control and turned 180 degrees after knocking against the bank.

Experience

Dinesh Senanayake a racing driver with experience came back to form by winning two events. First he won the event for standard cars 10-12 Kg/Hp with a timing of 42.403 seconds which was also the fastest timing by a Mazda in the meet. Next he won the 8 - 10 Kg/Hp event in his Suzuki Swift with a good timing of 41.325 seconds, out pacing many experienced drivers including Suren Cooke who made a come back after nearly 10 years.

Media personality and racing commentator Mahen Madugalle put up a sparkling display in his Austin Mini to win the event for modified cars upto 1050 cc.

Experienced racing driver Dammika Peiris never goes home without a win. Being the holder of several hill climb records, he won the event for Standard cars more than 12.0 Kg/Hp with a time of 44.960 seconds in his Ford Laser.

Close finish

Harsha Panduwawela clocked 48.304 seconds to win the event for Nissan March cars getting the better of the experienced Shehera Jayawardena who timed 48.916 seconds in a fairly close finish.

But Shehera's husband Dinesh Jayawardena made amends for this by winning the Modified cars event upto 1600 cc behind a Honda SIR with a time of 40.291 seconds. Behind him were top drivers like Sajjad Zuhair, Pasindu Peiris, Abeeth Dangalla and Sheran Fernando.

There was a lot of delay in the afternoon of the meet but due to no fault of the organisers as the timing equipment malfunctioned and some of the cars and motor cycles could not be timed and they had to do extra runs.

Then the slight showers which fell in the afternoon too delayed the meet a little but when conditions became normal, the meet was continued.

The track certainly needs improvement. The Clerk of the Course Bandula Weerasinghe did a grand job by checking the course from time to time to ensure that the corners were properly brushed and patched up where necessary.