June 25, 2024
Defending outright champion Dean Amos has lodged his entry for 2024 and is ready to face challengers as he bids for a record ninth Col Furness Memorial Trophy – the top prize at the annual Historic Leyburn Sprints.
The driver from Lismore NSW is in top form, having recently won the Queensland Hillclimb Championship in his Gould GR55B open-wheeler (pictured). As well as adding to his trophy tally, Amos will be out to improve his time on the 1.0 kilometre street course and hold off his perennial rival and 2021 winner Warwick Hutchinson.
The lap record stands at 39.79 seconds, set by Amos in 2019.
Amos’s British-built Gould is one of Australia’s fastest sprint and hillclimb machines and well worth a close-up look as you wander past the parked-up race machines in Warwick Street. It’s powered by an exotic Nicholson-McLaren V8 engine that gives the special lightweight chassis instant acceleration off the line and out of the corners.
The contest for fastest time is always nail-biting. Pressure builds through the Sunday runs as rival drivers lower their times again and again. It’s like the Bathurst 1000 Top Ten Shootout, but with a bigger variety of cars and a short, sharp course allowing absolutely no time-consuming mistakes.
