Darren Hossack - Australian Champion

Australian Champion

Hossack became involved in John Gourlay's Sports Sedan team, driving a Chevrolet V8 powered Saab 900. He finished runner up to Tony Ricciardello in the 2002 Australian Sports Sedan Championship, and fourth in 2003 behind Kerry Baily, Dean Randle and Ricciardello, before claiming a hard fought win in the 2004 Tranzam Sports Sedan Series. After placing third in the 2005 series the team scaled down their efforts over the next few years having come to the end of the Saab's racing career (it was sold during the 2006 season to Mark Nelson) and construction began on a new race car. Again Chevrolet V8 powered, the Audi A4 made its debut in 2007, and quickly became a race winning car. In an epic finale to the 2008 season, with the pointscore tied heading into the final race Hossack beat 2007 series winner Ricciardello to win the race and the series by three points.

The 2007 season saw Hossack begin racing Superkarts as well, racing the Anderson Maverick owned by Scott Ellis' Safe Evolutions team, which Ellis was using to prove his own engine design, the Safe Racing Engine, which was a modern re-interpretation of the 20 year old Rotax 256 design. Promising results in the first season lead to his first race wins, first at state level in Victoria, then in front of a national field on the support program of the 2008 Eastern Creek round of the V8 Supercar Championship.

Two race wins at the opening round of the Australian Superkart Championship also held at Eastern Creek Raceway set up a points buffer which was whittled away as the final round at Mallala Motor Sport Park progressed. With a slender points lead to protect, and title rivals Sam Zavaglia and Gary Pegoraro winning races almost lost the title. After almost stalling on the final race, Hossack raced back through the field, overtaking 25 karts over the eight lap finale to climb into third place on the final lap. With Zavaglia finishing second, it gave the title to Hossack by just three points.

Hossack lost both titles in 2009, his rivalry with Tony Ricciardello saw category veteran Des Wall win the Sports Sedan series with a consistent run, and Sam Zavaglia took the Superkart title with a career best season. Hossack was third in Sports Sedans and second in Superkarts. 2010 saw a return to the title claiming his second Australian Championship in Superkarts after win in the final race of the series broke a tie with Warren McIlveen whose previously points leading Superkart limped to the line in third position.

Hossack is current competing in the Australian Sports Sedan Series and the Australian Superkart Championship.

Read more about this topic:  Darren Hossack

Famous quotes containing the words australian and/or champion:

    Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.
    Vance Palmer (1885–1959)

    Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, “I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.”
    Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)