One-hundred-and-seventy-three drivers across 36 teams competed in the Alfa Club 12 Hour Relay at Winton Raceway, Victoria on October 12-13.
Stewart Temesvary of Springwood and Blaxland's Glenn Thomas were two of the five drivers in the Panorama Mountain Men team from the Mazda MX-5 Club of NSW that won the 12 hour event for the third year in a row.
Regularity Relays are an increasingly popular form of grassroots motorsport. It is more about driving consistently than outright speed. At the Alfa Club 12 Hour Relay drivers nominate a lap time and receive a bonus if they lap within one second of their nominated time and are penalised for going too fast. When you consider that a lap time is around 1 minute 50 seconds, driving at speeds from 40 to 150 km/hr competing with 36 teams on the track, you begin to appreciate the challenge.
Temesvary, team manager, said: "Regularity Relay events are a great form of motor sport, where success is reliant as much on teamwork as the driver's ability on the track. When the drivers are not on the track they are usually helping out with timing and pit-wall duties."
Temesvary, who is also a volunteer with the Valley Heights Rural Fire Brigade, ranks this win up there with his Australian National Supersprint title and becoming the World number 2 Tanker Driver at the World Firefighter Games in 2012.
Thomas has honed his regularity driving skills, winning his group at the Challenge Bathurst individual regularity events in 2016 and 2017 and brings his talents to the team.
Panorama Mountain Men's current combination of drivers got together for the first time at the Alfa Club 12 Hour in October 2017, and won that event. Since then the team has gone from strength to strength, achieving an enviable record of five wins and a second place in six regularity relays outings.
"Winning the Alfa Club 12 Hour once is hard enough, but winning it for three consecutive years is the stuff dreams are made of," said Thomas.
"Added to our victories at the Victorian 6 Hour Relay at the Phillip Island GP Circuit in 2018 and 2019, we are currently among the strongest teams in regularity relay events in Australia."
