Anton clinches sixth king-of-the-hill plum

MANILA, Philippines - Carlos Anton swept the final two rounds to capture the Hillclimb Series crown in Mount Samat, Bataan recently.

It was the Yokohama-Castrol-Mark Young championship driver’s sixth straight King of the Hill crown and 27th win in 28 races since Hillclimb Series started in 2007.

Anton reached the historic war memorial shrine before midnight, negotiating the 4km special stage in two minutes, 27.30 seconds or three seconds faster than 2011 Autocross champion Danby Yaptinchay (2:30.16) and Hornitex-Special stage teammate Alfie Concepcion (2:35.28).

Just before sunrise the following day, the racers went off once again in three-minute intervals for the sixth and final race of the season. Despite limited time for adjustment, Anton prevailed anew to secure the crown with a two-minute, 26.64-second clocking.

Alfie Concepcion defended his 2011 Group 4 crown by winning five of the six rounds this year.  Concepcion conceded the last round after he lost control of his Special Stage-prepared Honda on the fastest portion of the mountain and luckily escaped with only a broken radiator.

 A total of 35 of the best hillclimb racers from the North and South participated in the race that saw quite a number of cars and drivers crash during the climb.

 “The night race was extremely hard for everybody since it rained earlier before we were let off.  Luckily, we made it up the hill in one piece.  We were hitting top of third gear and getting into fourth gear in some stretches so it was really quick but so much fun,” Anton said after completing both races.

It was a very long day for Anton who earlier in the day raced and won the Circuit Showdown at the Batangas Racing Circuit and went straight after to Bataan for the Mount Samat night race. 

“We ran three races in a span of 21 hours in two different locations.  It was really tiring but winning in all three races makes it worthwhile,” Anton added.