Liam MacDonald and Anthony Ralston, both of Invercargill, shared the top award when they were declared the joint winners of the Southland Sports Car Club Champions Trophy at the club’s 2024/2025 prizegiving at Teretonga Park in Invercargill on Monday night.
MacDonald put his name on the trophy for the twelfth time, having first won it in 2013 and every year since, except 2017. For Ralston, it was the first time he had won the trophy that his father, Robert, had won in both 2009 and 2010.
The championship is decided on points across all the club’s disciplines and MacDonald earned his share of the title by winning the Keith McFadzien Trophy for the Motorkhana Championship for the seventh time from Andrew Kennedy and Craig Allan, the SSCC Speed Trophy for the Sprint Championship for the fifth time in succession with Allan second and Vega Mukri third.
He also won the Stresscrete 1601cc & over Speed Trophy in ClubSport and took the Warren Robbie Memorial Trophy for winning the overall ClubSport Championship for the fifth time, from Allan and Mukri.
Meanwhile Ralston, who competed in both the ClubSport and Race Championship’s, won the Auto Centre Trophy for the 2501cc & over Race Class from Lynden Prebble and Kyle Dawson and the Erskine Flying Farewell Trophy from Prebble while he finished runner-up in the overall Race Championship behind Prebble who hails from Dipton with Kevin Underwood of Invercargill third.
The results of both MacDonald and Ralston saw them level on points to share the overall club championship for the first time in recent memory.
Craig Allan of Invercargill was the Club Championship runner-up after finishing second in the Sprint Championship, third in the Motorkhana Championship and runner-up in the ClubSport Championship.
Other winners on the night were Blake Cooper, who won the Discount Tyres 0-1600 Championship Speed Trophy in ClubSport and also took the club’s Junior Driver Award for the second year running.
Nieko Scoles won the 1601-2500cc Race Championship from Bradley Dawson and Warren Kett, while Rachael Beck won the SSCC Club Championship Ladies Champion Trophy, the ninth time she has taken the honour since her first win in 2010.
The Macks Panel & Paint Marshall Of The Year was Greg McLeod, who has been involved with incident recovery at the circuit for almost twenty years. He has missed very few race meetings at Teretonga Park in all those years and is always happy to assist with any other tasks that are needed.
Header Image: Dave Loudon
