September was a busy month for Muswellbrook’s Brett Osborn who raced three back-to-back weekends in his Holden HQ.
This is an impressive feat, especially because the first weekend was the HQ National Title held at Baskerville Raceway in Tasmania where Brett successfully defended his title.
“The category was developed down there so it was pretty special to go to Baskerville for our first time with the nationals there,” Brett shared, explaining that they also got to race the following weekend at Simmons Plains Raceway at a standalone event.
“They are completely challenging, complete opposite tracks, Baskerville is very tight, steep, just a real technical track. And then you get to Simmons Plains, which is a big horsepower track with a couple of little challenges.”
Despite it taking a little longer to get his head around Baskerville, he was able to muscle the heavy car to take the win by .5 seconds ahead of fellow New South Welshman Luke Harrison.
After ticking these two tracks off the bucket list, Brett returned to the mainland to contest the final round in the HQ Racing NSW series which he was also leading.
“We’ve had a pretty good year, four state rounds and we’re lucky enough to win all four,” Brett told The Hunter River Times.
“I only actually lost one race all year too, that was at round one at Winton to my teammate Matty Barker, he got me, so we won every other race which was good, really strong for us.”
This dominance was somewhat unintentional, as at the start of the year the plan was to use a couple of rounds as shakedowns to make sure the car was up to scratch for the National Title.
“We built another motor, so we tested that the second round at Eastern Creek, wasn’t 100 per cent happy, so we tweaked it and we went back for the third round at Eastern Creek just for more track testing,” Brett shared with a laugh.
“It was flying so we took it to Baskerville, won the nationals with it. But in the meantime, we figured, leading the championship only one more round, may as well go and do it.”
Brett will jump behind the wheel of his Aussie Racing Car and do a few standalone events in the HQ in the remainder of 2024, and hopes to share seat time between the two classes again next year.
The 2025 HQ National Title will be run at Eastern Creek in Sydney which will be one event marked firmly in his calendar to defend his title.
-JEM ANSHAW