Scott and Roger Moran took a win apiece and led the Championship after the British Hillclimb circus had trailed over the Pennines for the Harewood rounds the day after Barbon.

The slightly damp opening run-off saw Moran Sr in charge and almost a second clear of Barbon winner Trevor Willis, who led a battling six-car group covered by not much more than half a second. Coming home a tenth adrift of his rival, Scott Moran’s championship lead narrowed to two points. But he stretched it considerably after taking the win, his third of the season, in the afternoon run-off after Willis failed to score. Making up time throughout the run, the hard charging OMS driver looked set for victory but got a wheel on the grass coming into Orchard and spun into the gravel. The mistake cost him a championship place as with a third place finish, Roger Moran took over Willis’s second spot on the table.

As at Barbon, Wallace Menzies was flying in the Firestorm and another second place finish in the afternoon meant that he closed to within a point of Willis on the Championship table, leapfrogging Will Hall. The Midlander shadowed the leading trio before lunch, but an afternoon charge by Derek Young in the burly 4-litre Gould-Judd eased him down to fifth both on the road and on the series table by two hundredths.

Richard Spedding and Eynon Price were tied together in their shared Force in the morning, reveling in the car’s new aero package and traction control and pegging Young back to eighth, but in the better afternoon conditions they came under fire from Alex Summers’ supercharged Firehawk, which had missed out on morning qualifying with a recurrence of the previous day’s electronic glitch. Dave Uren was in the points each time with his Force after delighted co-driver Nicola Menzies had joined the elite 12 for the morning run-off.

The weekend was also notable for the debut of Paul Haimes’ turbocharged Gould-Suzuki GR59, although a shortage of wets had left him with just one acclimatization run at Barbon and electrical problems stemmed the car’s progress at Harewood.

AVON TYRES/TTC GROUP MSA BRITISH HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP, HAREWOOD

FTD: Scott Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 50.04s

Championship run-off, round 5: 1 Roger Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 51.28s; 2 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-Powertec 28) 52.14s; 3 Scott Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 52.24s; 4 Will Hall (3.5 Force-Nissan WH) 52.40s; 5 Wallace Menzies (3.2 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 52.66s; 6 Richard Spedding (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC) 52.76s; 7 Eynon Price (1.6 Force-Suzuki PT) 52.80s; 8 Deryk Young (4.0 Gould-Judd EV GR51B) 54.16s; 9 John Bradburn (3.5 Gould-Cosworth HB GR55) 54.76; 10 Dave Uren (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC) 57.45s; 11 Mike Manning (2.0t Ford Puma 4WD) 58.64s; 12 Nicola Menzies (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC) 59.87s.

Championship run-off, round 6: 1 Scott Moran 50.04s; 2 Menzies 50.88s; 3 Roger Moran 50.96s; 4 Young 51.52s; 5 Hall 51.54s; 6 Bradburn  51.71s; 7 Alex Summers (1.3s DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) 52.03s; 8 Price 53.07s; 9 Uren 53.55s; 10 Spedding 53.56s; 11 Lee Griffiths (1.6 OMS-Hayabusa 25) 54.56s; 11 Willis) DNF.

British Championship positions after round 6: 1 Scott Moran 44pts; 2 Roger Moran 40; 3 Willis 32; 4 Menzies 31; 5 Hall 30; 6 Bradburn 21; etc.

Full results here.

Trevor Willis scored the first British Championship win for his new OMS 28 chassis at a Barbon Manor event confined to just one run-off. Rain, Lakeland mist and delays due to incidents reduced practice to just one run. Even though the weather relented after lunch, the paddock exit was a morass and at the end of the first set of competition runs, further incident delays and the prospect of more bad weather prompted organizers Liverpool MC to restrict the British Championship entry to just one set of competition runs, while running the smaller ‘B’ Licence entry again. A wise decision which was vindicated when a hailstorm swept in as competitors struggled to exit the boggy paddock…

            Despite a horsepower deficit to the ever-developing range of bigger V8s, Willis made the most of his sole opportunity on an almost dry track, charging his OMS to the top of the fast Cumbrian slopes threequarters of a second clear of Wallace Menzies’, now back in full cry in his fire-breathing DJ Firestorm. Another strong performance on this power hill by John Bradburn in his F1 powered Gould-Cosworth closed to within half a second of the Scot. Even with two wheels on the grass exiting the still slippery Lafone Hairpin, Will Hall grabbed fourth place on the road and on the Championship table in the growling Force-Nissan V6.

            Despite looking smooth and quick in their Gould V8, Scott and Roger Moran could only manage fifth and sixth. ‘I don’t know where the time went,’ said Scott. ‘It felt fine – maybe progress at the hairpin wasn’t as good as it could have been.’ The family duo held off the battling Force pairing of Richard Spedding and Eynon Price while Mike Manning, no doubt disappointed that track had dried, grabbed a couple of points for ninth in the 4WD rallycross Puma.

There were no other scorers as Graham Wynn spun the Force sports libre coming into the fast Richmond lefthander and damaged the right-hand rear. A rosejoint breakage was suspected. Simon Moyse skated straight on at the exit to the always tricky hairpin in the GR59 and Alex Summers’ DJ Firehawk ground to a halt within yards of the finish with ECU problems.

AVON TYRES/TTC GROUP MSA BRITISH HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP, BARBON MANOR

FTD: Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-Powertec 28) 21.69s

Championship run-off, round 3: 1 Willis 21.69s; 2 Wallace Menzies (3.2 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 22.31s; 3 John Bradburn (3.5 Gould-Cosworth HB GR55) 22.81s; 4 Will Hall (3.5 Force-Nissan WH) 22.88s; 5 Scott Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 23.38s; 6 Roger Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 23.66s; 7 Richard Spedding (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC)  24.05s; 8 Eynon Price (1.6 Force-Suzuki PT) 24.33s; 9 Mike Manning (2.0t Ford Puma 4WD) 26.34s; Graham Wynn (1.3t Force-Hayabusa LM001) DNF; Simon Moyse (1.3s Gould-Suzuki GR59) DNF; Alex Summers (1.3s DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) DNF.

Championship run-off, round 4: Cancelled

Full results here.

Scott Moran swept the board at Prescott’s opening British Hillclimb Championship rounds, winning both run-offs and setting the outright pace for the day during the opening bout. Several delays to the meeting caused a late finish in chilly conditions, but Moran’s second winning time was a mere hundredth slower than his first. His father Roger backed him up in the afternoon with a one/two in their tried and tested Gould-NME and the family duo now lead the Championship. ‘While everyone else was playing with their new toys,’ said self-effacing three-time former champion Scott, ‘we were able to make hay while the sun shone!’

A superb performance by Alex Summers set a new 2-litre record during the morning class runs. The youngster then stormed up almost a second faster in the opening run-off to edge out Roger Moran and shadow Scott for second place. Throttle butterfly problems slowed his supercharged DJ Firehawk in the afternoon but sixth place, equal to Deryk Young’s Gould-Judd, earned enough points to leave Prescott third overall in the title chase.

Trevor Willis shook down his new OMS 28 chassis with third place in the afternoon, just clear of Will Hall’s re-cammed Force-Nissan V6, as they bagged fourth and fifth on the table. In sixth spot, despite initial mapping problems with his new engine’s methanol fuel set-up, was Jos Goodyear in his GWR Raptor-Suzuki.

Wallace Menzies’ DJ Firestorm-Cosworth was also running methanol for the first time, but after a strong fourth place in the morning run-off the car was sidelined for the afternoon with a split fuel line. Richard Spedding and Eynon Price, who is sharing Spedding’s Force-Suzuki for the season, went well before lunch but were also sidelined for the afternoon with a broken driveshaft.

In the morning run-off John Bradburn, his potent Cosworth HB remapped and running traction control for the first time, stormed the hill to the halfway point faster even than Moran’s winning Gould. A spin at Semicircle ended the run, but he recovered for fifth place in the afternoon.

Graham Wynn’s newly turbocharged sports libre Force and Simon Fidoe’s tiny 1-litre Empire each made the afternoon cut. After problems with the supercharged Gould GR59 in 2012, Simon Moyse was delighted to make both run-offs despite finishing out of the points, but one of the happiest men at Prescott was hill school instructor Steve Day, who got into the points on his first outing in his new GWR Raptor, running the engine Goodyear used last year.

AVON TYRES MSA BRITISH HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP, PRESCOTT:

FTD: Scott Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 37.56s

Championship run-off, round 1: 1 Scott Moran 37.56s; 2 Alex Summers (1.3s DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) 37.98s; 3 Roger Moran (3.5 Gould-NME GR61X) 38.01s; 4 Wallace Menzies (3.2 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 38.17s; 5 Jos Goodyear (1.6 GWR Raptor-Suzuki) 38.18s; 6 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-Powertec 28) 38.25s; 7 Richard Spedding (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC) 38.26s; 8 Will Hall (3.5 Force-Nissan WH) 38.35s; 9 Eynon Price (1.6 Force-Suzuki PC) 38.59s; 10 Deryk Young (4.0 Gould-Judd EV GR51B) 38.82s; 11 Simon Moyse (1.3s Gould-Suzuki GR59) 39.97s; John Bradburn (3.5 Gould-Cosworth HB GR55) DNF.

Championship run-off-round 2: 1 Scott Moran 37.57s; 2 Roger Moran 37.84s; 3 Willis 38.15s; 4 Hall 38.54s; 5 Bradburn 39.09s; 6= Summers and Young 39.84s; 8 Goodyear 40.03s; 9 Steve Day (1.6 GWR Raptor-Suzuki) 40.38s; 10 Graham Wynn (1.3s Force-Suzuki LM) 40.57s; 11 Simon Fidoe (1.0 Empire-Suzuki 002) 40.98s; 12 Moyse 41.65s.

British Championship positions after round 2: 1 Scott Moran 20pts; 2 Roger Moran 17; 3 Summers 14; 4 Willis 13; 5 Hall 10; 6 Goodyear 9; etc.

Full results here.

Trevor Willis ended a superb run of late-season form by securing his first British Hillclimb Championship title at Loton Park’s finale. He did it in the best possible way, beating season-long rival Scott Moran in a straight fight to take the opening run-off win by sixteen hundredths of a second. His victory also marked the first British title for Steve Owen’s OMS marque, the York-based constructor ending Gould’s fourteen-year winning streak, the longest in the 65 year history of the Championship.

            Having set no less than three outright records on his last two visits to his local hill, Moran needed another to have even a chance of beating Willis to the title, but conditions were just too cold although both drivers ran within a second of Scott’s June benchmark.

            Light drizzle arrived for the afternoon runs making qualifying something of a lottery, but the final run-off of the Championship produced another first, this time for Will Hall. With the only sub-50sec run, the delighted Midlander scored his first ever British round win in his unique, Ian Dayson-built, Force-Nissan V6. Even newly crowned champion Trevor Willis had to give best to the flying Hall by almost three seconds, while outgoing champion Scott Moran’s season ended in an uncharacteristic spin at Triangle in the tricky conditions.

Despite visiting the outfield on his second qualifying run in the GWR Raptor, Jos Goodyear had already done enough to secure both a class win and the 2012 TTC Group Hillclimb Leaders title ahead of his co-driver Lee Adams.

Avon Tyres MSA British Hillclimb Championship, final positions: 1 Trevor Willis 261pts; 2 Scott Moran 247; 3 Roger Moran 205; 4 Jos Goodyear 194; 5 Wallace Menzies 167; 6 Lee Adams 134; 7 Will Hall 118; 8 Tom New 101; 9 John Bradburn 100; 10 Richard Spedding 74; etc.

But for a high speed brush with the notorious Doune barriers at Junction,  Trevor Willis could well have clinched his first British Hillclimb title on the last run of the day at the daunting Carse of Cambus hill in Stirlingshire.

He’d already won the first run-off of the day on a wet track, leaving Championship rival Scott Moran in fourth place and beaten first by his father Roger and then by Wallace Menzies in the Firestorm. A win for Trevor’s OMS in the closing run-off would have secured the title but the mistake, while merely bending a couple of wheel rims, cost vital fractions and left Willis a mere quarter-second adrift of Moran whose consequent win gave the Gould driver a chance, albeit slim, of taking a fourth title at Loton Park’s Championship final in a fortnight.

To do that Moran will need to win both rounds with at least one hill record and with Willis finishing third or below each time, whereas a single win for Willis at Loton would give the OMS driver the title.

At Doune, possible intervention amongst the leaders by the GWR Raptor of Jos Goodyear and Lee Adams was ruled out by Adams’ trip into the barrier at Garden Gate during Sunday morning’s wet practice session, sidelining the car for the day. This left Richard Spedding to top the day’s 1600cc racing timesheets with a fine third place behind Willis in the second run-off. But in the class runs it was double run-off qualifier Finlay Whyte who shone, taking the top award and with it the 2012 Guyson Scottish Hillclimb title as he fought off rivals Jonathan Rarity and George Coghill Jr.

So as Loton looms it appears, in tennis terms, to be ‘advantage Willis’. On the other hand, Scott Moran has broken the outright record no less that three times on his last two appearances at his local hill. Whatever the outcome, the final British Championship showdown on September 30^th looks set to stage its tensest finish for years.

British Championship standings after rounds 31 & 32, Doune: 1 Trevor Willis, 258pts; 2 Scott Moran 238; 3 Roger Moran 198; 4 Jos Goodyear 186; 5 Wallace Menzies 156; 6 Lee Adams 128; etc.

Trevor Willis kept his British Hillclimb title aspirations on the boil with a superb performance at Prescott at the weekend. After breaking Scott Moran’s hill record (Trevor’s third outright hill standard of the year) to win the opening run-off from his Championship rival, an outstanding shot in the rain qualified eleventh for the second run-off when no-one else in the big single seater class, including Moran, managed to make the cut on the soaking wet track. Second to run in the shoot-out itself, he finished second in the run-off to winner Jos Goodyear, who had qualified top in the dry and was last to run on a progressively drying track.

Although now dropping points, aided by Moran’s no-show in the afternoon Willis enhanced his title chances in the run up to the penultimate Championship meeting at Doune in a fortnight. With four rounds left to run, Moran is now on the back foot but can substantially narrow his points deficit as he will have no points to drop. Willis can now only score two or three points per round, even with a win, so the title chase could still go to the final rounds at Loton at the end of the month.

            Goodyear had another great day in the Raptor, demolishing the 1600cc racing class record, winning the second run-off and moving back up to a Championship third place ahead of Roger Moran. Alex Summers, too, went record-breaking with the Firehawk in the 2-litre division. But the biggest grin of the day came from Les Mutch who not only disposed of Tim Coventry’s 1997 Specialist ModProd record, but got his Dax Rush V6 into a British run-off for the first time ever.

            After an afternoon qualifying session in which rain intervened to turn the form book on its ear, a superb hillclimb comeback from Eynon Price saw the former 1600 ace qualify second and finish third in the second run-off, driving Richard Spedding’s Force-Hayabusa.

British Championship standings after rounds 29 & 30, Prescott: 1 Trevor Willis, 253pts; 2 Scott Moran 221; 3 Jos Goodyear 186; 4 Roger Moran 184; 5 Wallace Menzies 148; 6 Lee Adams 128; etc.

Two more British hillclimb run-off wins at Gurston Down kept Scott Moran in the Championship hunt with six rounds to go. Championship leader Trevor Willis fought hard to match Moran’s times on a hill that favoured Scott’s more powerful Gould-NME, running second in the opening run-off ahead of Gurston’s May winner Tom New in the big Gould-Judd. But he had to settle for third place in the closing bout as Wallace Menzies, on a PB with the effective re-tubbed DJ Firestorm, blasted through into the runner-up spot.

In a close-fought second run-off which saw the top seven cars covered by less than a second, John Bradburn equalled his May Gurston result with a fine fourth place in the brutish Gould-Cosworth, demoting rival New back to ninth on the Championship table. Jos Goodyear and Lee Adams enjoyed a day-long battle in their GWR Raptor, outgunned as expected on Gurston’s two fast stretches although setting the pace through the technical Karousel/Ashes section. Graeme Wight Jr was kept busy repairing a broken CV and then welding up the Raptor’s broken rear wing support, but that didn’t stop Goodyear resetting the day’s only class standard as he lowered Adams’ 1600cc record.

            With Willis starting to drop points at next weekend’s second Prescott round, the pendulum starts to swing in Moran’s favour as he will not drop scores until the final round at Loton Park, however Scott is well aware that he can’t afford any mistakes if he is to have a chance of a fourth Championship title.  

British Championship standings after rounds 27 & 28, Gurston Down: 1 Trevor Willis 239pts; 2 Scott Moran 212; 3 Roger Moran 179; 4 Jos Goodyear 168; 5 Wallace Menzies 148; 6 Lee Adams 121; etc.

After a two-event  layoff, Scott and Roger Moran returned to British Championship Hillclimbing with a vengeance at Shelsley Walsh, taking a run-off win apiece and first and second FTD in their Gould-NME GR61X.

            An ill-timed shower during the opening qualifying runs meant that Scott Moran missed the cut for the opening shoot-out. Running earlier, Roger just missed the top qualifying spot after another class record-breaking performance by Jos Goodyear, but he turned the tables to snatch the win from the Raptor driver by four tenths in the run-off itself. In a cascade of sparks from the OMS’s skidblocks, the ever-present Trevor Willis edged out Wallace Menzies’ latest, re-tubbed DJ Firestorm for third place.

            Scott Moran made no mistakes in the afternoon, qualifying top ahead of a revitalised Menzies and taking the win from his father Roger by almost four tenths to set FTD at 23.41s. Menzies turned the tables on Willis this time, snatching third place from the Championship leader by a mere hundredth.

            On a day when several class records fell, Darren Luke (Caterham-Hayabusa), Simon Jenks (Caterham CSR), Andrew Henson (Van Diemen RF91) and Alex Summers (DJ Firehawk) joined Goodyear in rewriting the Shelsley record books.

            If it’s dry, the Gurston Down round next weekend will, like Shelsley, give Scott Moran something of an advantage in the power stakes, although with eight rounds to go the two leading contenders will not start to drop their six lowest scores until Prescott in a fortnight. On the basis of their current scoring rate, with five zero scores Moran has just one to drop and Willis five, so despite Trevor’s apparently healthy lead, the Championship could possibly go down to the wire at Loton Park’s late September finale.

British Championship standings after rounds 25 & 26, Shelsley Walsh: 1 Trevor Willis 222pts; 2 Scott Moran 192; 3 Roger Moran 166; 4 Jos Goodyear 164; 5 Wallace Menzies 133; 6 Lee Adams 117; etc.

Scoring his best result of what has been a somewhat lean year since winning Prescott’s opening British hillclimb round in the DJ Firestorm, Wallace Menzies returned to form on Craigantlet’s road course near Belfast with two runs close to Scott Moran’s hill record. Even this, though, was no match for championship leader Trevor Willis. Just as he had at Wiscombe Park just six days earlier, Willis stormed the fast Ulster hill to win both run-offs and end the day with a new hill record. Total commitment in the OMS Powertec through Craigantlet’s twisty opening section more than made up for the Firestorm’s power advantage over the second-half power blast as Willis relegated Menzies to second place in each run-off, breaking Scott Moran’s 2008 record on the last run of the day.

            Matching the leaders’ pace through the first part but inevitably losing out on the second, Jos Goodyear produced another outstanding performance in the GWR Raptor and on a hill he’d never seen before, chasing the leaders home in each run-off to head off co-driver Lee Adams. With the Moran duo’s Gould V8 absent for the second week running, Goodyear moved up to third place on the championship table with a three point advantage over Roger Moran. John Bradburn and Will Hall traded fifth and sixth places in consecutive run-offs and Tom New, who hadn’t made the trip to Northern Ireland, lost out to Bradburn, who took over his eighth place on the table behind Hall.

            With ten of the 34 rounds left to run, Willis will doubtless be praying for rain and a repeat of June’s wet double win at Shelsley Walsh in a fortnight’s time, to extend his 25-point lead over Scott Moran when the defending champion returns to the fray.

British Championship standings after rounds 23 & 24, Craigantlet: 1.Trevor Willis 207pts; 2 Scott Moran 182; 3 Jos Goodyear 150; 4 Roger Moran 147; 5 Wallace Menzies 118; 6 Lee Adams 112; etc.

An on-form Trevor Willis finally consigned Adam Fleetwood’s eight-years-old Wiscombe Park hill record of 34.16s to the history books last Sunday, taking both run-off wins and the outright lead in the Avon Tyres British Hillclimb Championship.

Series leader Scott Moran had not planned to enter the event and both he and his father Roger were absent, but Willis has always been a hard man to beat at what is one of his favourite hills, newly resurfaced for this season, and gave notice of his intent on his very first competition run by shaving fifteen hundredths off Fleetwood’s hill record. He went on to take the opening run-off win on a rapidly drying track following a short but intense rain shower.

Shrugging aside worries about a possible engine problem (’The engine's been difficult to start all weekend and feels like it’s tightening up’ said Trevor afterwards), he reset the record again in style on the last run of the day, storming the picturesque Devon hill in 33.92s to take his fifth run-off win of the year.

            Once again it was Jos Goodyear that pushed him every step of the way in the GWR Raptor. Qualifying second to Willis each time with a new class record, Goodyear’s morning run-off shot scythed past Wallace Menzies’ screaming DJ Firehawk-Cosworth to grab second place behind the flying OMS-Powertec. But when Menzies spun out at Sawbench in the afternoon it was Tom New that put the Raptor driver under pressure. He responded with a time just a tenth outside Fleetwood’s age-old hill record in the 1600cc bike-powered car to chase Willis home for the second time.

            The ‘circus’ moves to Northern Ireland and Craigantlet’s fast public road course on the outskirts of Belfast next weekend where, with the Morans again scheduled to miss the event, Willis will be determined to capitalise on his Championship lead.

British Championship standings after rounds 21 & 22, Wiscombe Park: 1 Trevor Willis 186pts; 2 Scott Moran 182; 3 Roger Moran 147; 4 Jos Goodyear 134; 5 Wallace Menzies 100; 6 Lee Adams 98; etc.

Just two days after resetting Bouley Bay’s outright hill record, Jos Goodyear and the amazing GWR Raptor did it again Le Val des Terres on Guernsey. Inside Martin Groves’ 27.61s benchmark on both class runs, the second of the two established the hill’s outright record with 27.36, by which time Goodyear had already won the opening run-off from Roger Moran with a 27.51. Although a tenth slower than the new record set on his qualifier, it was still quicker than Groves’ 2010 mark thus earning the extra point. The pace slackened only marginally for the closing run-off, which saw a tense duel between Goodyear and Scott Moran resolved in a tie for the win on 27.76.

            The bike-engined Raptor now holds outright records on two of the eleven British hills – can Goodyear make it three when the Championship visits the resurfaced Wiscombe Park on July 29?

            Currently, Goodyear now lies fourth overall on the British Championship table. Trevor Willis is in a strong second place, but with both Scott and Roger Moran scheduled to miss the next four rounds, two each at Wiscombe and Craigantlet, the leading positions could change significantly over the next couple of weekends.

British Championship standings after rounds 19 & 20, Le Val des Terres: 1 Scott Moran 182pts; 2 Trevor Willis 165; 3 Roger Moran 147; 4 Jos Goodyear 116; 5 Wallace Menzies 92; 6 Lee Adams 91; etc.

Following his brief tenure of the Loton Park hill record last month, before it was finally bagged by defending champion Scott Moran, Jos Goodyear finally made history in Jersey as the first driver of a motorcycle-engined car to hold a British hill record for 50 years.

            His 37.82s win in Graeme Wight Jr’s Raptor-Hayabusa at Bouley Bay’s round 17 on Thursday broke holder Trevor Willis’s 2010 benchmark by six hundredths – co-incidentally at the same venue that Jerseyman Tico Martini took his maiden win aboard his Triumph Tiger engined Martini Special a fortnight before his similar feat at Great Auclum, the last British win for a bike-engined car.

            Lee Adams didn't make the Channel Islands trip, so with second place in the closing run-off behind Willis, who had chased the victor home in round 17, Goodyear leapfrogged his regular co-driver into fourth place on the British Championship table.

In a battle reminiscent of their record-breaking duel at Loton Park a month ago, Scott Moran and Jos Goodyear again went head-to head at an Avon Tyres British hillclimb round, this time at Harewood.

Just a quarter of a second away from Martin Groves’ hill record, Moran took the opening Avon Tyres British run-off win in his Gould V8 with Goodyear just half a second adrift in the amazing GWR Raptor. Then, in qualifying for the second shoot-out, Goodyear levelled with Moran’s winning time to set the joint overall pace. At 49.79s it was the first sub-50 at Harewood by a bike engined car. Jos had been trading class records with Lee Adams all day, but this parting shot was well over a second inside his co-driver’s May benchmark and enough to top the qualifying sheets for round 16. Meanwhile Moran had bided his time, but in the all-important run-off itself he showed his champion’s form, heading the overall timesheets again with a 49.32, just two tenths outside that elusive hill record.

With Goodyear last to run, the pressure was well and truly on. Perhaps excessively so as his day-long duel with Moran ended in the latter’s favour with the Raptor spinning harmlessly at Orchard Corner.

So Scott Moran collected another two wins to extend his Championship lead to 16 points. As ever, and shadowed each time by Scott’s father Roger, the winner’s main rival Trevor Willis was waiting in the wings with the OMS-Powertec. He converted a first run-off third place into a strong second place in the closing shoot-out for third FTD, just two hundredths behind Goodyear.

With the event also a round of the REIS/HSA Speed Championship, Simon Andrews shared his OMS-Suzuki with Steve Filkin and the pair set the pace amongst the HSA runners, Andrews finishing third in the 1100 racing class. Aside from the single seaters, John Palmer took a roadgoing specialist class win in his Westfield ahead of Allan and David Warburton, who struck mechanical problems with the record-holding Caterham. Eric Morrey took the ‘B’ licence class win in his Clan from Ben Hamer, who was running his new Mini Turbo for the first time and sharing it with Wil Ker, who despite holing a piston in his own version in practice, took the opening ModProd class win in the borrowed car from Andy Russell’s Ginetta G15.

British Championship standings after round 16, Harewood: 1 Scott Moran 149pts; 2 Trevor Willis 133; 3 Roger Moran 115; 4 Lee Adams 91; 5 Jos Goodyear 75; 6 Wallace Menzies 67; etc.

As the Avon Tyres British hillclimb series moved to Scotland last weekend, a combination of a newly resurfaced Doune track and persistent rain caused problems for many drivers. There were numerous delays throughout the weekend as cars slid off the course, often to their detriment against the ever-present barriers and stone walls. But through it all, Lee Adams demonstrated his mastery of the course and conditions, plus the superb handling of the GWR Raptor, to devastating effect. Holding off a determined Trevor Willis each time to win both British run-offs – the second by a margin of a second and a half – he also set FTD in qualifying with a run that beat co-driver Jos Goodyear to the 1600cc racing class win by no less than 3.6 seconds.

            Although unable to do much about the flying Scot, Willis and the OMS-Powertec revelled in the conditions, keeping the more powerful V8 Goulds of first Scott Moran, then his father Roger, at bay. Next to Adams, Wallace Menzies spearheaded the attack from north of the border despite spinning out of the opening run-off and losing his Championship fifth place to Goodyear as a result, with an eventual sixth place in the closing shootout behind his Championship rival. Former Scottish hillclimb champion Jonathan Rarity and Finlay Whyte battled lower down the field and with a fine class-winning shot, Steve Marr qualified his 1100cc PCD Saxon for the opening run-off but finished just out of the points.

Even the run-offs were not without incident as like Menzies, several drivers made mistakes over East Brae’s notorious blind brow. But after trying to make up for an indifferent score in the opening run-off and clocking a phenomenal pace to the Garden Gate split, Tom New lost the Gould-Judd and removed a couple of wheels on the unforgiving stone wall in the Tunnel.

            At the end of a long and eventful day, the championship order remains largely unchanged at the sharp end with the ‘big three’ still in charge. Despite (for him) relatively lowly third and fourth place finishes, Scott Moran kept his healthy points accumulation ticking over and leads Willis by 13 points, with Roger Moran a further 16 points adrift. 

Championship standings after rounds 13 & 14: 1 Scott Moran 129pts; 2 Trevor Willis 116; 3 Roger Moran 100; 4 Lee Adams 78; 5 Jos Goodyear 66; 6 Wallace Menzies 61; etc.

A stunning day’s hillclimbing at Loton Park, which saw ten class records reset and the outright hill record lowered three times, left the crowd applauding and historians reaching for their books of statistics.

            During qualifying for the opening Avon Tyres British run-off, Scott Moran took the first new hill record of 2012, shaving six hundredths off his old mark set last September. He failed to match the time in the shoot-out itself, but that didn't prevent him taking his sixth win of the year ahead of Trevor Willis and the ever-present Roger Moran. The victory marked the 100th British hillclimb win for the Gould-NME GR61X, which Scott shares with his father, equalling the previous record tally of former rival Martin Groves’ GR55B.

            But it was the closing run-off that really had the crowd on its feet. Second to run after qualifying the amazing GWR Raptor in third place behind co-driver Lee Adams, Jos Goodyear caused a sensation with Loton's first ever sub-44sec climb, a whole half-second inside Moran’s 2011 record. It was not only the first Championship hill record for Graeme Wight Jr’s supremely effective creation, but the first by a pure motorcycle engined car for 50 years.

Although running inside the record set by Moran in the morning, even the hard charging Willis failed to match this time. Under pressure to emulate his co-driver, Adams’ final shot in the Raptor ended in a spin at Triangle.  But on the very last run of the day, the defending champion showed just why he is a three-times title winner. Allowing Goodyear only a few minutes of glory, Moran's final, super-smooth ascent of Loton’s tortuous 1475 yards ended with yet another new hill record, at 43.57s, set at the wheel of what is now the most successful hillclimb car of all time, with 101 British run-off wins to its credit.

British Championship standings after rounds 11 & 12, Loton Park: 1 Scott Moran 114pts; 2 Trevor Willis 98; 3 Roger Moran 86; 4 Lee Adams 58; 5 Wallace Menzies 56; 6 Jos Goodyear 53; etc.

Amid a cascade of sparks from the OMS-Powertec’s skidblocks, Trevor Willis lit up the gloom of a dismally wet Shelsley Walsh on Jubilee weekend. Storming through the murk and spray to secure FTD and two dominant wins on rounds 9 and 10 of the Avon Tyres British Hillclimb Championship, he boosted his attack on series leader Scott Moran. Over threequarters of a second adrift of Willis’s devastating wet run charge on the opening run-off, the three times champion had to settle for third place in the afternoon stanza, edged out by his father Roger in their shared Gould-NME.

But even Moran Sr had to settle for third FTD after an astonishing run by an on-form Jos Goodyear had qualified just behind the flying Willis in the afternoon to set second overall on the day’s timesheets in the tiny GWR Raptor. Driving partner Lee Adams could only manage a couple of fifth place run-off finishes but maintained his fourth place on the series table, albeit some way behind the top three. For the second year running, Scott Moran, Trevor Willis and Roger Moran are strengthening their grip at the head of the Championship.

            Still behind Adams on the table, fellow Scot Wallace Menzies slipped to fourth after qualifying the howling Firestorm behind Willis for the opening run-off, then ran sixth in the afternoon. He maintained his points cushion over Tom New, last weekend’s Gurston winner not having the best of weekends at Shelsley with relatively lowly finishes. Just four hundredths behind New’s V8 Gould in the opening stanza, a delighted Neville Rollason bagged his first ever British point for tenth in his OMS-Hayabusa, going on to repeat the performance in the afternoon run-off.

British Championship standings after rounds 9 & 10, Shelsley Walsh: 1 Scott Moran 93pts; 2 Trevor Willis 80; 3 Roger Moran 71; 4 Lee Adams 53; 5 Wallace Menzies 47; 6 Tom New 43; etc.

After Scott Moran had taken his fifth consecutive Avon Tyres British Hillclimb run-off win, at a hot and sunny Gurston Down, Tom New stemmed the defending champion’s runaway progress with a win in the closing shoot-out. Having narrowly missed victory in the opening bout when he trailed Moran by just twelve hundredths, the delighted Southampton motor engineer scored his third career victory, setting the outright pace for the day at the fast Wiltshire course.

            Records tumbled in the May sunshine, with every one of the six class standards in the Lotus 7 Club Championship classes being reset, several more than once. The most spectacular revision of the day came in the Specialist Production class as Darren Luke carved a whole second off Allan Warburton’s old mark despite taking much of the Karousel complex with his Caterham-Hayabusa sideways on the grass!

Having dispatched Trevor Willis’s seven-years-old 2-litre class record by threequarters of a second, Alex Summers went on to finish fourth in the opening run-off after running even faster in his supercharged DJ Firehawk-Hayabusa.

Two highly competitive run-offs saw two tied placings in the first and another in the second. Both involved local hero Tony Wiltshire who tied with a somewhat outgunned Lee Adams for the final point before equaling Summers’ time for eighth place later. Roger Moran’s opening fifth place tied with Wallace Menzies, who dropped to sixth place behind New on the championship table after another problematic weekend with the DJ Firestorm.

Despite the slight (but perhaps temporary) glitch in his run of success, Scott Moran still leads the series by a healthy 16 points ahead of the hard charging Trevor Willis, who took sole charge of the current runner-up spot with two third place finishes.

British Championship standings after rounds 7 & 8, Gurston Down: 1 Scott Moran 76pts; 2 Trevor Willis 60; 3 Roger Moran 54; 4 Lee Adams 41; 5 Tom New 37; 6 Wallace Menzies 35; etc.

After the British hillclimb ‘circus’ had crossed the Pennines during their annual May double-header weekend, Scott Moran secured a clean sweep of wins, taking all four of the back-to-back rounds at Barbon Manor and Harewood. ‘That’s got to be my best weekend ever,’ he said as he left Yorkshire on Sunday evening with a healthy thirteen point championship lead.

            Such was Lee Adams’ pace at the twisty, stop-start Harewood track that he harried Scott Moran in the opening stanza, demoting the ever-present Trevor Willis to third place. Willis fought back in the second run-off to shadow the champion’s Gould once again as Moran closed to within a quarter of a second of Martin Groves’ hill record. A class record breaking duel between Adams and his co-driver Jos Goodyear had been decided in Adams’ favour, but while Roger Moran managed to keep the battling Raptor duo at bay for third place, an on-form Goodyear snatched a superb fourth – and fourth FTD – from his opposite number by just five hundredths of a second.

            Wallace Menzies’ challenge ended with zero points. An opening run-off time good enough for fourth place was disallowed after the Firestorm was deemed to have crossed the white demarcation line on the exit of Quarry Bend, then suspected fuel pressure problems, which had dogged the car all weekend, slowed his progress dramatically in the second run-off.

British Championship standings after rounds 5 and 6, Harewood: 1 Scott Moran 57pts; 2= Trevor Willis and Roger Moran 44; 4 Lee Adams 40; 5 Jos Goodyear 25; 6 Wallace Menzies 23; etc.

During a day-long battle with Trevor Willis, defending British Hillclimb champion Scott Moran closed his Gould V8 to within a hundredth of a second of his own hill record as he took FTD at Barbon Manor’s scenic, high speed Cumbrian dash. Willis had levelled with Moran during first qualifying, before closing to within four hundredths of a second of Moran’s winning climb in the opening run-off. But when both drivers stepped up the pace in the final shoot-out, Moran produced his near-record form, with Willis again pressing hard to claim the runner-up spot in the OMS-Powertec.

‘Flying Scot’ Lee Adams, who had lowered Will Hall’s 1600cc racing class record during each of his class runs in his GWR Raptor, went on to shadow the leading duo in the opening run-off as Roger Moran kept Adams’ co-driver Jos Goodyear at bay for fourth place. But in the second stanza, Moran Sr squeezed past the tiny bike-engined machine to take third. After understeering off at Lafone Hairpin during the opening run-off, Wallace Menzies recovered to fifth place later on despite fuel pressure problems with the Firestorm-Cosworth.

Alastair Crawford scored his best ever result in the Gould-NME with sixth place in the opening run-off, while Simon Moyse scored the first British points for the new Gould GR59, bringing home the supercharged, bike-engined car in seventh place.

British Championship standings after rounds 3 and 4, Barbon Manor: 1 Scott Moran 37pts; 2 Roger Moran 29; 3 Trevor Willis 27; 4 Lee Adams 25; 5 Wallace Menzies 23; 6 Will Hall 13; etc.

The weather did its best to wash out the opening rounds of the Avon MSA British Hillclimb Championship at Prescott, but the top contenders splashed through the murk to produce two nail-biting run-offs with the Scots to the fore.

Last to run in the opening shoot-out, Wallace Menzies screamed the high-revving Firestorm-Cosworth through the spray to defeat defending champion Scott Moran and his father Roger by almost a second in the opening shoot-out. After challenging the Scot hard in qualifying, Trevor Willis spun his OMS like a top and out of the points at the fast Orchard Corner.

In the second run-off Lee Adams, who had failed even to qualify his diminutive GWR Raptor for the first stanza, produced a superb shot to set the day’s outright pace and lead the field. Neither the V8s of Willis, Moran Jr nor Menzies could match the time of the bike-engined machine and Adams took the win and FTD by seventeen hundredths from Willis.

Almost as impressive was the performance of Alex Summers, who thrust his tiny  1-litre OMS into the run-off each time – with a fine fourth place finish in the morning – to earn the Midland Man of the Meeting award and level on points with the overall winner. But it was the see-saw duel between consistent front-runners Moran and Menzies that gave them the joint championship lead after the first two rounds.

            Full report to follow in Speedscene.

Championship standings after rounds 1 and 2, Prescott: 1= Scott Moran and Wallace Menzies 17pts; 3 Roger Moran 14; 4= Alex Summers and Lee Adams 10; 6 Trevor Willis 9; etc.