A Flying start for Camilleri at Hal-Far

The Grimaldi Lines  HillClimb and Sprint championship 2015 organised by the Island Car Club (ICC) was off to a flying start as 51 drivers took to the road on Tuesday with its first venue held at the Industrial park area of Hal-Far.

By Etienne Grech

 

The ICC would like to thank Mario Mifsud who organised “MDRA for Charity-Solidarjeta` Bil-Motorsport 2015” and was a paramount figure in securing permission to hold this successful event, The Malta Industrial Parks, the Police Force, Civil Protection, St Johns Ambulance Service, Wardens, marshals and all helpers. This was a united event in conjunction with MDRA (Malta Drag Racing Assoc.) and numerous other motorsport clubs who altogether attained the total sum of €23,000 in only one day, reflecting as to how compassionate these enthusiasts really are towards charity. This is the tenth anniversary that this motorsport charity event was held to aid those in need of funds. These were collected along the way namely for “id-Dar Tal Providenza“, Inspire, The Malta Community Chest Fund, The Malta Autism Centre and yet again this year the MCCF.

Blustery winds and bright sunshine greeted a full (over 50) paddock of competitors all in different groups starting from Classic cars to standard road cars, Autocross cars, modified saloon cars and single-seaters.

The start-line of the race was along the side of the car park of Ghar Hasan. Once off through the winding roads aside the factories competitors undertook three chicanes in the straights, 8 apexes and the finish line at the square adjacent to the Hal-Far Quarter mile track.

The length of the sprint course was approximately 1800 metres with the best time of the day clocked at 66.376 seconds. This superb time was achieved by overall winner of the day Keith Camilleri in his UPS-Logistics Radical Prosport.

Camilleri is the reigning champion and is already showing dominance after being nearly two seconds quicker then runner-up competitor Mark Micallef. Micallef clocked a fine time of 68.158sec in his Avon & Fiamm Radical ProSport. An excellent third was Fabio Baldachino  (Tonys Bar OMS-200M) with a time of 68.674secs.

Teddy Aquilina produced the best performance in the category for veteran drivers, achieving a superb time of 78.298secs with his popular black SR1, ranking 13th overall.

Jeremy Cassar (VW Golf GTi) came out tops in the competitive front wheelers securing the top spot and 14th place in the overall ranking after a terrific final drive which put him ahead of Michael Micallef (Honda Civic). 

John Zammit was outstanding with his Lotus Elise, posting the seventh best time in run three and fastest of the rear wheel drive saloon cars. He was closely followed by Edward Calleja (Lotus Elise).

Anthony Bernard (Mitsubishi Evo6) was fastest in the four wheel drive series, posting a time good enough to slip past Charles Grech in his Subaru Impreza and 15th place on the list.

The classic car series was dominated by newcomer Mick Hay in his Fisher Fury. Clifford Debono grabbed the runner-up position in his Triumph Vitesse.

The next event is scheduled for Sunday the 12th April at Mtahleb, Rabat. The first run commences at 9.00am