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BRITISH HILL CLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP - REPORT ARCHIVE

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RYDER TAKES THE TITLE


Event 15 at Loton Park on 29/09/2024
With his season-long rival Alex Summers at the top of the hill and leading the opening run-off at Loton Park, after a maximum effort to try and stave off the inevitable, final runner Matt Ryder needed only a top three finish to seal his first British Hillclimb title. As we’ve seen all year, half measures are not on the Gould driver’s agenda and he stormed across the finish line in a time that would stand as FTD and the only sub-43sec run of the day. The title was in the bag.
          ‘All my life I’ve been watching other people win the Championship and I never thought it would be me!’ he said afterwards. ‘This year has been a real roller-coaster of a ride. Everyone’s been so close and it’s been an absolute pleasure to race with all these guys.’ Alex Summers was gracious in defeat. ‘I’m really pleased for Matt’, he said. ‘His talent’s been evident ever since he got in the Gould and it was a question of when, not if, for him.’
          Into third place in the morning run-off came Will Hall, who would have led the way until Ryder’s final shot had he not incurred a one second penalty for hitting a course marker, which dropped him back behind Summers. Again showing immense potential in the latest GR59-Judd, his strong third place on the Championship table was rarely in doubt. Locking up into Triangle, Trevor Willis ran fourth ahead of Dave Uren and Sean Gould, who as ever opened the run-off in a shared drive with Ryder but who was almost caught by Johnathen Varley. Just seven hundredths behind, the Predator V6 driver was also intent on adding the concurrently run Midland Championship’s Top Ten Challenge crown to the BH Cup and Midland titles that he’s already secured this year.
          On the grass out of Fletcher’s and Museum, another eleven tenths run by Alex Coles in the supercharged Force TA almost caught Varley and held off Richard Spedding’s Raptor for eighth place as Graham Wynn, Varley’s rival in the Midland Challenge and sponsor of the series, came home for the final point. Just out of the points were Allan Warburton, taking full advantage of son David’s absence – on his honeymoon – to make his first run-off appearance of the year in the Gould-Suzuki while Stuart Bickley rounded off the runners in his distinctive 1100cc Force TA.
          The second run-off was a different affair entirely as rain, which had been threatening for some while, finally arrived halfway through it. This favoured not only perennial opening runner Sean Gould, who eventually finished third, but Alex Summers. After qualifying in an unaccustomed eighth place, the Firestorm driver just missed the rain and set a time good enough for the win by one second from the next runner, Dave Uren. Into fourth place after an early run came Alex Coles for his best ever British run-off finish, ahead of Johnathen Varley. Second away, Stuart Bickley made his second run-off appearance of the day with a fine sixth place, finishing highest placed 1100cc runner in the Championship with 14th overall. A big slide at Triangle as the rain was beginning to take hold left Richard Spedding in eighth place, one ahead of second fastest qualifier Wallace Menzies. The outgoing champion had had a fraught day, failing to qualify in the morning after locking up and sliding straight on at Hall, then as second fastest qualifier in the closing run-off, he caught the worst of the rain on slick tyres and was taking no chances. Even worse off was Trevor Willis who, after a huge sideways moment at Triangle, pottered up to take the final point. Early runner Graham Wynn had already spun out at Museum, handing the Midland Top Ten Challenge title to Varley. But what of the new champion?
          Matt Ryder had qualified top, ahead of Menzies, but quite understandably he opted not to take his final run on the now thoroughly wet track. After all, for him, it was already mission accomplished.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship,

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 42.97s

Championship run-off, round 29: 1 Ryder 42.97s; 2 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 43.68s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 44.10s; 4 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 44.34s; 5 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 44.59s; 6 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 45.32s; 7 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 45.39s; 8 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 45.48s; 9 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 45.77s; 10 Graham Wynn (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GRW59 47.19s; 11 Allan Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 47.93s;
12 Stuart Bickley (1.1 Force-Suzuki TA) 48.52s.

Championship run-off, round 30: 1 Summers 44.17s; 2 Uren 45.10s; 3 Gould 45.30s; 4 Coles 45.75s; 5 Varley 46.89s; 6 Bickley 48.54s; 7 Spedding 48.87s; 8 Hall 52.40s; 9 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 58.04s; 10 Willis 62.71s; 11 Wynn DNF;12 Ryder DNS.

British Hillclimb Championship final positions: 1 Ryder 204pts; 2 Summers 199; 3 Hall 168; 4 Menzies 148; 5 Willis 139; 6 Uren 118; 7 Gould 111; 8 David Warburton 64; 9 Jack Cottrill 44; 10 Paul Haimes 40; etc.


 

Matt Ryder finally secured the British Hillclimb title with a masterly opening run (Stuart Wing)


Alex Summers took a hard fought second overall (Stuart Wing)


A fine podium finish for Will Hall promised much for next season (Stuart Wing)


Jon Varley and the Predator-TKD - triple championship winners in 2024 (Stuart Wing)


SUMMERS' DOUNE DOUBLE


Event 14 at Doune on 15/09/2024
An all-out effort by Alex Summers at Doune’s daunting Carse of Cambus hill kept the British Championship alive before the final two rounds at Loton Park. After qualifying top for each run-off, Summers first challenge came from Will Hall. Last to run on a wet track, he denied the Gould GR59 driver his first win of the season by just two hundredths of a second. In the drier second run-off it was his Championship rival Matt Ryder that set the time to beat and on the last run of the day, a healthier 0.36sec margin was sufficient for Summers to take a second win, and with it FTD, after a superb run in his DJ Firestorm.
          On those wet first runs and with the Championship within reach, Ryder was not about to push his luck in the demanding confines of Doune and brought his Gould GR59 home in fourth place, over a second behind the winner and led home by Hall and Wallace Menzies. Conditions were virtually dry for the second run-off and with the leaders’ times now only a second or so outside the hill record, Ryder ran within a few tenths of Summers’ winning time as Hall disputed third place with Menzies by a hundredth of a second.
          Chasing the ‘big four’ home in the wet morning run-off was Jack Cottrill, the DJ Dallara-XD driver equalling his best score of the season, while in the afternoon it was Johnathen Varley who trailed the leading quartet to add a season’s best BHC score to his second successive BHC Cup title, clinched earlier during the class runs. Even the fifth man on the Championship table, Trevor Willis, had to give best to the flying Predator-TKD as he held off David Warburton, who had beaten him by six hundredths for sixth place in the morning run-off, when Varley had finished eighth ahead of Sean Gould. First to run in the GR59 shared with Matt Ryder, Gould had set off on slick tyres just as the rain began to fall. The break for his return down the hill gave everyone the chance to switch to wets although next up, Stuart Sugden and Alex Coles failed to score and Richard Spedding sneaked in for the final point. The Raptor driver had a better run in the drier afternoon run-off, finishing eighth behind Warburton and ahead of Coles, who had a difficult day in the turbocharged Force-Suzuki. After bending a suspension link during contact with Doune’s unforgiving barriers in practice, in the true spirit of hillclimbing a replacement link, cannibalised from benevolent 1100cc runner Stuart Bickley’s similar chassis, was swapped throughout the day between their respective runs to keep Coles in the hunt for BHC points. This enterprise paid off with Alex’s ninth place in the closing run-off, ahead of Gould, Cottrill and Dave Uren.
          Doune also hosted the final two rounds of the AET Turbos Tin Top Challenge, and with series leader Roger Moran not present with his Skoda R5, the door was open for the second placed Simon Bainbridge to take full advantage in his Audi V8 powered SBR Chrono. This he did in spades, hustling the big sports libre monster between the barriers to take the opening run-off win from the ultra-rapid Stuart Reid, the local man a regular supporter of the Challenge in his 2-litre Peugeot 205 and a Doune regular. Even Damien Bradley, again at the wheel of Stephen Darley’s Impreza and lying third in the series coming to Doune, could only get within three tenths of Reid, ahead of Darley and another man who knows Doune well, ‘Manta’ Jock Ramsay.
          Opening the second run-off, Bradley set what would turn out to be the winning time, but after octogenarian Geoff Twemlow, a newcomer to the Challenge this weekend in his familiar Impreza, and Porsche pilot Jonathan Williamson had run, an accident to Andrew Norris’s own 911 led to a considerable delay due to barrier repairs. Another spectacular performance by Reid eventually brought the Peugeot home in third place ahead of top qualifier Darley, but with the Challenge title on the line, penultimate runner Bainbridge produced a tremendous run which, after a big twitch at the top of East Brae, just failed to match Bradley’s winning time. But second place was enough for him to clinch the Challenge title by a single point from Bradley and the absent Roger Moran, both tied for second place on the series table.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Doune

FTD: Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 35.59s

Championship run-off, round 27: 1 Summers 40.54s; 2 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 40.56s; 3 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 41.22s; 4 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 41.58s; 5 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara-Cosworth XD) 41.74s; 6 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 41.79s; 7 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 42.18s; 8 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 42.33s; 9 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 42.90s; 10 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 43.02s; 11 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 44.01s; 12 Stuart Sugden (1.6t GWR Raptor 1-Suzuki) 47.01s.

Championship run-off, round 28: 1 Summers 35.59s; 2 Ryder 35.95s; 3 Hall 36.51s; 4 Menzies 36.52s; 5 Varley 37.30s; 6 Willis 37.53s; 7 Warburton 37.59s; 8 Spedding 38.17s; 9 Coles 38.18s; 10 Gould 38.23s; 11 Cottrill 38.91s; 12 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 39.02s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 28: 1 Ryder 201pts; 2 Summers 196; 3 Hall 166; 4 Menzies 148; 5 Willis 136; 6 Uren 103; 7 Gould 98; 8 Warburton 64; 9 Jack Cottrill 44; 10 Paul Haimes 40; etc.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 9: 1 Simon Bainbridge (4.2t SBR Chrono-Audi V8) 45.59s; 2 Stuart Reid (1.9 Peugeot 205) 47.07s; 3 Damien Bradley (2.4t Subaru Impreza) 47.36s; 4 Steven Darley (2.4t Subaru Impreza) 48.04s; 5 Jock Ramsay (2.0 Opel Manta) 50.02s; 6 Andrew Norris (3.3 Porsche 911 Carrera) 52.70s; 7 Jonathan Williamson (3.5 Porsche 911 Carrera) 53.08s; 8 Geoff Twemlow (2.4t Subaru Impreza) 55.57s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 10: 1 Bradley 46.87s; 2 Bainbridge 47.25s; 3 Reid 49.67s; 4 Darley 49.79s; 5 Williamson 53.32s; 6 Ramsay 54.18s; 7 Twemlow 55.98s; 8 Norris DNF.

BHC Tin Top Challenge final positions: 1 Bainbridge 70pts; 2= Bradley and Roger Moran 69; 4 Stephen Moore 50; 5 Darley 49; 6 Reid 41; 7 Scott Moran 37; 8 Eynon Price 35; 9 Paul Howells 20; 10 Jonathan Williamson 18; etc.
         

 

Alex Summers kept the Championship alive with a double win (David Baxter)


Will Hall was three hundredths away from his first win of the year (David Baxter)


Johnathen Varley chased the 'big four' home in the opening run-off (David Baxter)


Simon Bainbridge secured the 2024 Tin Top Challenge title (David Baxter)


RYDER AGAIN AT PRESCOTT


Event 13 at Prescott on 08/09/2024
Matt Ryder continued his bid for a maiden British Championship title with a second consecutive double win at Prescott. Having been unbeaten for the last eight rounds, with just four to go this sixth double win puts him firmly on course to deny Alex Summers, whose best finish on a changeable weekend, weatherwise, was third place in the opening run-off.
          This came at the end of a dismally wet morning’s qualifying in which three 1100cc single seater drivers, Stuart Bickley, David Tatham and Tom Weaver, all made the cut while regular BHC heavy hitters such as Dave Uren and Paul Haimes fell foul of the wet track and failed to qualify. With the track drying marginally for the opening shoot-out, everyone stayed on full wet tyres but almost inevitably it was top qualifier Ryder that made the most of the conditions – albeit in a time some six seconds shy of his course record set the previous month.          
          On his best weekend of the year by far, Wallace Menzies closed to within nine hundredths  as he chased Ryder home. He finished second again in the afternoon run-off, held this time in much drier conditions. After qualifying top for the first time this year, he finished just six hundredths adrift after Ryder had just set a time which would stand as FTD. A hugely committed opening run-off shot in the wet had salvaged third place for Alex Summers, but his Championship hopes were fading as in the second, drier run-off, with everyone back on slicks, he had to settle for a tie with Trevor Willis. Although they both led at that point, such was the battle up front that they ended the day in joint fourth place. Once again it was the consistently quick Will Hall that came through to take the final podium spot and consolidate his third place on the Championship table which, with Menzies and Willis tied for fourth but some way behind, now seems virtually assured.
Despite the very different conditions, the top four were the same each time, but first to dip a
toe in the water (almost literally) on the wet first runs was Sean Gould, who set a time that would eventually trail the leading quartet and head Trevor Willis. Chasing hard was the up and coming Neil Coles, just heading the ever hard charging David Warburton, who had done well to lead in the atrocious qualifying conditions until the ‘big four’ had got underway. Just six hundredths behind the GR59, Dave Tatham’s 1-litre Firehawk-Suzuki narrowly held off final points scorer Jack Cottrill’s Indycar engined DJ Dallara as Tatham’s classmates Tom Weaver and Stuart Bickley completed the runners. This was only the second bid for points for Weaver’s Empire-Suzuki this year while Bickley, equally impressive in his distinctive yellow Force TA, is currently the highest placed 1100cc racing car on the BHC table in fourteenth overall.
          The second run-off on a much drier track saw Dave Uren back in the fray with the GR55B to qualify and finish seventh, just ahead of the ever-present Coles, whose turbocharged Force TA got the better of Midlands hill supremo Johnathen Varley’s Predator-TKD, leaving fellow Midland Championship front-runner Graham Wynn with the final point in his GR59. Having twice qualified his Firehawk, Dave Tatham was out of the points this time, together with the unlucky Paul Haimes who, having failed to qualify for the opening shoot-out, spun on the entrance to Pardon Hairpin with what appeared to be a front suspension problem.
          Like the contenders for the BHC run-offs, competitors in the 10-car Tin Top Challenge run-offs, run immediately beforehand each time, had two completely different sets of conditions to deal with as they lined up to contest what would be their penultimate weekend of the season. The contrasting weather held no problems for the Morans as their rally spec Skoda R5 took the win each time. Even finding time to indulge in a spot of handbrake tweaking out of Ettores, Scott took the first win in the wet, three tenths clear of his father, but in the afternoon it was Roger that came out on top, defeating Steve Darley’s Impreza by almost a second and consolidating his place at the head of the Challenge table.
          One week before going into the final two rounds at Doune, Roger has a fairly comfortable series lead over the massive SBR Chrono of Simon Bainbridge. This lead was enhanced as although Bainbridge, on his first visit to Prescott, brought the big car home in a strong third place behind the Morans in the morning run-off, in the afternoon the Audi V8 ran out of urge coming out of SemiCircle just yards from the finish and he had to settle for last place. That left him just one point clear of Damien Bradley who, with the fearsome Subaru Legacy out of action for the weekend, was sharing Darley’s Impreza. Fifth in the morning, Bradley chased home his benefactor in the afternoon as the duo split the all-conquering Moran pairing. Although still fourth on the table, Stephen Moore’s potent Mitsubishi Evo could find no reply to either Bradley or the exuberantly driven Skoda R5 of former rallyman Eynon Price.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Prescott

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 35.71s

Championship run-off, round 25: 1 Ryder 40.65s; 2 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 40.74s; 3 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 40.88s; 4 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 40.98s; 5 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 42.20s; 6 Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 42.60s; 7 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 42.89s; 8 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 43.03s; 9 David Tatham (1.1 DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) 43.09s; 10 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 43.24s; 11 Tom Weaver (1.0 Empire Evo-Suzuki) 43.59s; 12 Stuart Bickley (1.1 Force-Suzuki TA) 43.71s.
         
Championship run-off, round 26: 1 Ryder 35.71s; 2 Menzies 35.77s; 3 Hall 36.23s; 4= Willis and Summers 36.39s; 6 Gould 37.54s; 7 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 38.08s; 8 Coles 38.56s; 9 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 38.79s; 10 Graham Wynn (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GRW59) 39.20s; 11 Tatham 40.84s; 12 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) DNF.
         
British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 26: 1 Summers 190pts; 2 Ryder 186; 3 Hall 161; 4= Willis and Menzies 133; 6 Uren 103; 7 Gould 95; 8 Warburton 55; 9 Haimes 40; 10 Jack Cottrill 38; etc.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 7: 1 Scott Moran (2.0t Skoda Fabia R5) 45.42s; 2 Roger Moran (2.0t Skoda Fabia R5) 45.75s; 3 Simon Bainbridge (4.2t SBR Chrono-Audi V8) 46.59s; 4 Eynon Price (1.6t Skoda Fabia R5) 46.94s; 5 Damien Bradley (2.4t Subaru Impreza) 47.71s; 6 Stephen Moore (2.3t Mitsubishi Evo 6 RS) 48.09s; 7 Steven Darley (2.4t Subaru Impreza) 49.78s; 8 Rodney Eyles (1.6t Toyota Yaris GR) 52.91s; 9 Paul Howells (3.8 Porsche 911 RSR) 53.40s; 10 Stuart Reid (1.9 Peugeot 205) 53.42s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 8: 1 Roger Moran 43.13s; 2 Darley 44.05s; 3 Bradley 44.25s; 4 Scott Moran 44.51s; 5 Price 44.60s; 6 Moore 45.62s; 7 John Dunne (2.2t Mitsubishi Evo7 RS) 47.39s; 8 Reid 47.53s; 9 Howells 47.54s; 10 Bainbridge 48.05s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge positions after round 8: 1 Roger Moran 69; 2 Bainbridge 52; 3 Bradley 51; 4 Moore 50; 5 Scott Moran 37; 6= Darley and Price 35; 8 Reid 24; 9 Howells 20; 10 Robbie Birrell 17; etc.
 

After yet another double win, Matt Ryder's first BHC title is within reach (Stuart Wing)


Wallace Menzies chased Ryder home each time on his best weekend of the season (Stuart Wing)


Dave Tatham twice made the run-off cut in his 1100cc Firestorm (Stuart Wing)


Damien Bradley harried the Tin Top front runners in Steve Darley's Impreza (Stuart Wing)


RYDER'S PRESCOTT RECORD


Event 12 at Prescott on 18/08/2024
After fighting understeer in the middle of the long, off-camber Ettores Bend during the opening run-off at Prescott, it looked as though Matt Ryder’s chances of securing a fifth BHC series win in a row may have evaporated. But he’d already made the top qualifying spot with a new class record and to match that would give him the win. He wrestled the Gould-Judd to the top in what seemed, by his standards, to be a somewhat scrappy run and, amazingly, the clocks stopped on a new outright record – five hundredths inside the time set by Wallace Menzies in 2021! Having added a third hill record to his 2024 tally, Matt went on to win the second run-off, notching up his fifth double win of the season and strengthening still further his position as a potential British champion.
          As ever, his championship rival Alex Summers fought hard in the Firestorm, but with only third and fourth placings respectively his nominal series lead dwindled still further. With six rounds left to run he would now start dropping scores but with two zero scores so far, the on-form Ryder would hold the advantage.
          With that record-breaking run, Ryder held a close fought chasing trio at arms length, with all three covered by just 0.15sec. In second place, Wallace Menzies was already on his way to his best weekend of the season, consolidated with third place in the closing shoot-out. After finishing fourth early on and with a Championship third place well in his sights, Will Hall was on top form in the afternoon, qualifying and finishing second and just five hundredths away from joining Ryder as the only other driver to run below 35sec on the day.
          As ever, Trevor Willis wrung the neck of his OMS V8, surviving a grassy moment out of the final Ess to finish fifth in the morning. A tidier run later on netted a marginal improvement in time, but not in position. After finishing sixth in the opening run-off just ahead of Sean Gould, Dave Uren dropped to seventh later on, relinquished sixth to Gould after his GR55B-NME got into a tank-slapper exiting SemiCircle just yards from the finish. Ironically, his time improved by a hundredth! In the opening shoot-out, Paul Haimes ran wide out of Ettores in the GR59 turbo then corrected a tailslide out of Pardon to finish eighth, although a tidier, quicker run second time up gained no improvement in position.
         Graham Wynn was back in a British run-off for the third time this year, finishing ninth in the opener aboard his GR59-Judd, but in the afternoon he failed to make the cut and was replaced by the relatively diminutive Raptor-Suzuki of Richard Spedding, who also finished ninth. Last man in the points each time was the up and coming Alex Coles, running increasingly quickly on every run in the supercharged Force-Suzuki TA. For once, David Warburton finished out of the points in his normally aspirated GR59-Suzuki while in the opening run-off, the normally rapid and consistent Johnathen Varley spun the Predator in the Esses. Undaunted, he qualified for the final shoot-out with a new 2-litre class record, but still had to settle for the final placing.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Prescott

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 34.60s (outright hill record)

Championship run-off, round 23: 1 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 34.60s; 2 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 35 11s; 3 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 35.26s; 4 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 35.31s; 5 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 36.24s; 6 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 36.31s; 7 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 36.46s; 8 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 36.71s; 9 Graham Wynn (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GRW59 36.88s; 10 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 37.01s; 11 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 37.04s; 12 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) DNF.

Championship run-off, round 24: 1 Ryder 34.89s; 2 Hall 35.04s; 3 Menzies 35.13s; 4 Summers 35.43s; 5 Willis 36.17s; 6 Gould 36.26s; 7 Uren 36.30s; 8 Haimes 36.52s; 9 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 36.67s; 10 Coles 36.73s; 11 Warburton 36.93s; 12 Varley 37.95s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 24: 1 Summers 189pts; 2 Ryder 166; 3 Hall 154; 4 Willis 123; 5 Menzies 115; 6 Uren 99; 7 Gould 84; 8 Warburton 52; 9 Haimes 40; 10 Jack Cottrill 37; etc.

 

Matt Ryder dominated with another double win and a hill record (Stuart Wing)


Alex Summers fought hard to maintain his Championship advantage (Stuart Wing


A fine second place for Will Hall strengthened his third spot on the series table (Stuart Wing)


Wallace Mengies enjoyed his most successful weekend of the season so far (Stuart Wing)


ANOTHER RYDER DOUBLE


Event 11 at Shelsley Walsh on 11/08/2024
Matt Ryder posted his intentions from the outset, qualifying top for the opening BHC run-off at Shelsley Walsh with a new class record. The weather, and the pace, were blistering and by the end of a storming twelve car encounter, in which the four fastest runners all launched off the startline in the 1.8sec bracket, with only two of the twelve failing  to break the 2sec mark. Staggering pace into Bottom Ess, followed by an inch perfect passage through Shelsley’s tightest section, saw Ryder fall short of Sean Gould’s outright hill record (set in the same GR59) by just six hundredths. The time would stand as FTD as in the second run-off, held under the early evening low sun, Ryder’s pace slackened by a mere couple of tenths although for the second event in a row – and the fourth time this year – he achieved a double run-off win, strengthening further his challenge to series leader Alex Summers. With eight rounds remaining, and with dropped scores soon entering the equation, their duel could yet go down to the wire.
          Close on Ryder’s tail each time, Summers kept up the pressure in the Firestorm as the only other driver in the 22sec bracket. In another impressive showing in the latest GR59-Judd, with two third place finishes Will Hall almost joined them in the 22s, consolidating his comfortable third place on the Championship table. Hanging on to fifth spot in the Championship, Wallace Menzies showed some of his old form with stupendous pace through the Esses, finishing fourth each time having closed to within a hundredth of Hall in the opening run-off. Without a spare driveshaft, having replaced one broken in practice, a slightly cautious Trevor Willis surrendered fifth place to Dave Uren in the opening shoot-out. But throwing caution to the winds later on, the OMS V8 driver turned the tables on the former Shelsley winner and finished a mere tenth behind Menzies’ much more powerful Gould, while remaining well clear of the Scot on the Championship table.
          After marking the 40th anniversary of the first appearance of the 1984 Championship-winning Gould 84D with a demonstration run in the car by Sean Gould, Sean and his father David continued the celebrations amid a sociable gathering of friends and associates old and new on Saturday evening. On Sunday, current Shelsley record-holder Sean brought the winning GR59 home seventh each time, initially ahead of long-time customer Paul Haimes’ turbocharged bike-engined version and later Zak Zammit, on his third run-off appearance of the year in the similarly powered Empire Wraith, in which he bumped Haimes down a place to ninth. Earlier, and following his impressive showing at Wiscombe Park, 19-year-old Alex Coles had finished ninth in the supercharged Force-Suzuki TA at this much faster venue.
          After breaking the 2-litre class record in qualifying for the opening run-off, Johnathen Varley’s Predator-TKD had then been edged out of the points by David Warburton’s GR59-Suzuki. But in the second stanza the positions were reversed. Despite a fully committed run amid a shower of sparks from the Empire Evo3’s skidblocks, Andy Greenen rounded off the finishers in the closing run-off, but it was a disappointed Jack Cottrill that had to settle for the final placing before lunch, his DJ Dallara-XD finally crawling over the line after succumbing to electronic gremlins.
          Highlight of the Tin Top Challenge run-offs was a new Shelsley closed car record by Damien Bradley and his fearsome Subaru Legacy, whose winning 27.77s run in the opening shoot-out finally eclipsed Ian Rowlance’s record in the Metro 6R4 by twelve hundredths. The substantial power of Simon Bainbridge’s SBR Chrono-Audi came into its own at Shelsley and the big car ran within half a second of the Legacy, but while Bainbridge found another quarter of a second to win the second stanza, Bradley slowed slightly with an apparent misfire near the finish line. This elevated Bainbridge to second place on the Challenge table, taking the place from Stephen Moore, fourth each time in the heavily fuelled Impreza (judging by the amount of exhaust smoke on each upchange!). But with both run-offs completed, the overall Challenge lead still stood to Roger Moran, who brought his highly effective Skoda Fabia R5 rally car home third each time with a couple of mid-29s.
          Despite having missed the two Wiscombe rounds, Bradley moved up the table to fourth place, but his long-time driving partner and engine builder Steve Darley was less fortunate. His Impreza took no part in either run-off having broken a front wishbone under braking after the finish line during the opening qualifying runs. Robbie Birrell, too, was out of luck. After bringing his Cayman home fifth in the first run-off, heavy contact with the Recticel barrier at Bottom Ess during the second qualifying runs unfortunately sidelined the car.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Shelsley Walsh

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 22.43s

Championship run-off, round 21: 1 Ryder 22.43s; 2 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 22.83s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 23.13s; 4 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 23.14s; 5 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 23.47s; 6 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 23.77s; 7 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 23.97s; 8 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 24.18s; 9 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 24.42s; 10 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 24.47s; 11 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 25.05s; 12 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 49.21s.

Championship run-off, round 22: 1 Ryder 22.62s; 2 Summers 22.89s; 3 Hall 23.03s; 4 Menzies 23.79s; 5 Willis 23.90s; 6 Uren 23.92s; 7 Gould 24.45s; 8 Zak Zammit (1.3t Empire Wraith-Suzuki) 24.51s; 9 Haimes 24.57s; 10 Varley 25.04s; 11 Warburton 25.06s; 12 Andy Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo 3-Suzuki) 25.12s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 22: 1 Summers 174pts; 2 Ryder 145; 3 Hall 138; 4 Willis 111; 5 Menzies 98; 6 Uren 90; 7 Gould 75; 8 Warburton 52; 9 Jack Cottrill 37; 10 Paul Haimes 34; etc.
 
BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 5: 1 Damien Bradley (2.4t Subaru Legacy) 27.77s; 2 Simon Bainbridge (4.2t SBR Chrono-Audi V8) 28.20s; 3 Roger Moran (2.0t Skoda Fabia R5) 29.22s;
4 Stephen Moore (2.3t Mitsubishi Evo 6 RS) 29.59s; 5 Robbie Birrell (2.5t Porsche Cayman GTS) 31.63s; 6 Paul Howells (3.8 Porsche 911 RSR) 31.66s; 7 Stuart Reid (1.9 Peugeot 205 31.79s;
8 Richard Snow (3.8 Porsche Cayman GT4) 32.67s; 9 Robert Lancaster-Gaye (4.0 Porsche Cayman GT4) 33.01s; Steven Darley DNS.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 6: 1 Bainbridge 27.95s; 2 Bradley 28.30s; 3 Moran 29.44s; 4 Moore 29.69s; 5 Howells 32.21s; 6 Reid 32.34s; 7 Duncan Andrews (3.8 Porsche Cayman GT4) 32.70s; Snow DNS; Lancaster-Gaye DNS; Mark Lawrence (2.5t Porsche Cayman GTS) DNS.

BHC Tin Top Challenge positions after round 6: 1 Roger Moran 50pts; 2 Bainbridge 43; 3 Moore 40; 4 Bradley 37; 5= Darley and Eynon Price 22; 7= Scott Moran and Reid 20; 9 Birrell 17; 10 Howells 16; etc.


 

Matt Ryder scored his fourth double win of the season (Stuart Wing)


Alex Summers chased Ryder hard each time (Stuart Wing)


'Third Man' Will Hall produced another fine performance (Stuart Wing)


Damien Bradley and the Legacy reset Shelsley's closed car record (Stuart Wing)


TWO RECORDS FOR RYDER


Event 10 at Wiscombe Park on 28/07/2024
Matt Ryder posted the strongest possible challenge to Championship leader Alex Summers with successive hill records on each of his two run-off shots at a sunny Wiscombe Park. With the meeting split, as last year, into what were effectively two one-day events, Saturday’s run-off saw penultimate runner Summers edge out leader Will Hall by just over a tenth to take the lead in a time just a hundredth away from Wallace Menzies’ year-old hill record. Then top qualifier Ryder launched into a run that looked visibly quicker the further it progressed, culminating in what was not only a new Wiscombe record, but resetting the bar by a full threequarters of a second – a superb effort in the GR59-Judd that the Gould Composites team had repaired after Sean's accident at Le Val des Terres just seven days earlier.
          In the post-event prize presentation, it was entirely fitting that the traditional bottle of champagne for a Wiscombe hill record was presented to Matt by Lucy Lambton, grand-daughter of  Major Charles Lambton who, together with Major Richard Chichester, had been the co-founder of the Devonshire hill that first ran in 1958.
          Under even sunnier skies and in front of a record Wiscombe crowd, Sunday’s run-off action was equally spectacular. Once again, Hall led the way with just Summers and Ryder to run. Then Summers produced a run that, while not quite matching Ryder’s new record, was still inside the old mark. Ryder’s reply was even more decisive as, almost unbelievably, he stormed to yet another hill record. This time it was a 31.77, and the first ever run at Wiscombe to break the 32 second barrier.
          After all that, Summers’ series lead was still a comfortable 31 points, but now it was Ryder who trailed him once again and not Hall, although Will had a great weekend, being well in touch with the leaders with third place each time. Fourth on the table, Trevor Willis was fifth in Saturday’s shoot-out behind Wallace Menzies, but slipped to ninth on Sunday after a big tank-slapper out of Martini. Menzies’ launch times in the big GR59 were as quick as anybody’s but he was harried by Paul Haimes on the Sunday, whose top six placing in his bike-powered version was his best result of the year so far. Dave Uren retained his top six placing on the table with a strong fourth on Saturday, converted to seventh the following day when the next man on the table, Sean Gould, slipped past by a tenth.
          Young Alex Coles enjoyed his best BHC outing so far, qualifying the supercharged Force TA he shares with Kelvin Broad and finishing in eighth place each day – even, on Saturday, at the expense of class supremo Haimes. The final point each day went to Johnathen Varley in the Predator while just out of the points on Saturday were Wiscombe ace Ed Hollier, making his first BHC appearance of the year in his Force HC, and Darren Gumbley’s Force TA. Out of luck on Sunday were Andy Greenen’s Empire Evo and the Wraith of Ulsterman Will Loughridge, the latter after a time-consuming trip up the bank on the exit of Wis Corner just after the start.
          Haimes, Varley and Hollier had all lowered their respective class records during their qualifying runs, while adding to the weekend’s record tally was Olivia Cooper, who lowered her own Wiscombe outright Ladies record by half a second to leave it at 36.49s.
          Rounds 2 and 3 of the BHC Tin Top Challenge preceded the main Championship run-offs and Scott Moran was in charge of each, sharing the 2-litre turbo Skoda R5 rally car with his father Roger. But with Scott having missed the earlier Harewood rounds it was Roger who led the series after Wiscombe. Splitting the Skoda duo on Sunday after a tremendous drive on only his first visit to Wiscombe and in what was, by his own admission, a somewhat unsuitable car for the confines of the venue, was Simon Bainbridge in the big V8 Audi powered SBR Chrono. Despite having problems negotiating Sawbench and Martini in the big sports libre car, he produced the second fastest time of both run-offs combined, just seven hundredths behind Scott’s winning time on Sunday. With two strong fourth places by Stephen Moore, the Evo 6 driver took over second overall on the series table.
          Driving his ex.Harri Rovanpera Skoda, with just 1.6-litres as opposed to the Morans’ 2-litre, former rally driver Eynon Price was particularly spectacular, handbraking the car round Sawbench in true rally style. He completed a Skoda 1/2/3 in Saturday’s run-off but slipped to fifth as the pace hotted up on Sunday, ending the day level on points for fourth overall with Steve Darley, for once unaccompanied by Subaru Legacy co-pilot Damien Bradley, absent with family commitments. An interesting newcomer to the Tin Top strength at Wiscombe was the Yamaha powered Ford 1934-style Ford Coupe Legend car of Jan Yeo, while scoring his first point in this year’s series was Eric Morrey with his turbocharged Imp.
         
Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Wiscombe Park

FTD (Saturday): Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 32.16s (outright hill record)

Championship run-off, round 19: 1 Ryder 32.16s; 2 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 32.94s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 33.07; 4 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 33.24s; 5 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 33.48s; 6 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 33.99; 7 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 34.11s; 8 Alex Coles (1.3s Force-Suzuki TA) 34.39s; 9 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 34.72s; 10 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 35.20s; 11 Ed Hollier (1.0 Force-Suzuki HC) 35.36s; 12 Darren Gumbley (1.6 Force-Suzuki TA) 35.90s.

FTD (Sunday): Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 31.77s (outright hill record)

Championship run-off, round 20: 1 Ryder 31.77s; 2 Summers 32.48s; 3 Hall 32.97s; 4 Uren 33.61s; 5 Menzies 33.65s; 6 Haimes 33.98s; 7 Gould 34.30s; 8 Coles 34.50s; 9 Willis 34.92s; 10 Varley 35.49s; 11 Andy Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo3-Suzuki) 36.06s; 12 Will Loughridge (1.3t Empire Wraith-Suzuki) 38.03s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 20: 1 Summers 156pts; 2 Ryder 125; 3 Hall 122; 4 Willis 100; 5 Menzies 84; 6 Uren 79; 7 Gould 67; 8 Warburton 51; 9 Jack Cottrill 37; 10 Paul Haimes 29; etc.       

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 3: 1 Scott Moran (2.0t Skoda Fabia R5) 39.30s; 2 Roger Moran (2.0t Skoda Fabia R5) 39.92s; 3 Eynon Price (1.6t Skoda Fabia R5) 40.06s; 4 Stephen Moore (2.3t Mitsubishi Evo 6 RS) 40.57s; 5 Steven Darley (2.3t Subaru Legacy) 40.92s;   6 Simon Bainbridge (4.2t SBR Chrono-Audi V8) 41.16s; 7 Jan Yeo (1.3 Legend ’34 Ford-Yamaha) 42.23s;;8 Paul Howells (3.8 Porsche 911 RSR) 42.38s; 9 Jonathan Williamson (3.5 Porsche 911 Carrera) 43.25s; 10 Robbie Birrell (2.5t Porsche Cayman) 44.51s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 4: Scott Moran 39.20s; 2 Bainbridge 39.27s; 3 Roger Moran 39.65s; 4 Moore 39.81s; 5 Price 40.52s; 6 Darley 41.53s; 7 Williamson 42.45s; 8 Yeo 42.77s; 9 Howells 43.04s; 10 Eric Morrey (1.0t Hillman Imp) 45.12s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge positions after round 4: 1 Roger Moran 34 pts; 2 Moore 26; 3 Bainbridge 24; 4= Darley and Price 22; 6 Scott Moran 20; 7 Bradley 18; 8= Stuart Reid and Birrell 11; 10 Williamson 8; etc.

 

Matt Ryder twice reset Wiscombe's outright record (Nigel Cole)


Although unable to match Ryder's pace, Alex Summers maintained his healthy series lead (Nigel Cole)


Olivia Cooper also made the record books with a new Ladies' standard (Nigel Cole)


6-time British champion Scott Moran continued his 'retirement' with two Tin Top run-off wins (Nigel Cole)


TWO MORE FOR SUMMERS


Event 9 at Le Val Des Terres on 20/07/2024
Alex Summers strengthened his grip on the 2024 Championship with a double win at Le Val des Terres, but intermittent rain throughout the afternoon ensured that times across the board were severely affected. Even Summers’ 32.89s FTD, set in winning the second run-off, remained well over six seconds shy of Wallace Menzies’ hill record set last year.
          In a significant upset during the first qualifying runs, the unfortunate Sean Gould put the GR59J off in the damp conditions causing enough damage to sideline the car for the day. This meant that Matt Ryder, who had already qualified the car in third place for the run-off, became a non-starter and after missing both Guernsey rounds would lose his runner-up spot on the series table. With second and third place finishes respectively, Will Hall continued his run of good results to bring his own GR59-Judd into second place overall. Although 31 points adrift of the flying Championship leader, Hall now has a mere three point cushion over Ryder. So with six rounds left to run in the remaining two months of the season, the battle for second place hots up.
          Making up for his indifferent showing on Jersey, Dave Uren chased Hall home in the opening run-off with the ever present Trevor Willis in pursuit, but ‘Scary Trev’ ended another successful Channel Island foray by running just a tenth shy of Summers’ FTD in the second run-off, and nine hundredths ahead of Hall. Next up was Wallace Menzies, taking his sole points of the day as he had spun out of qualifying for the opening run-off. Nevertheless he maintained his steady progress up the Championship table, hanging on to the fifth spot he had gained on Jersey just three days earlier.
          Dave Warburton and classmate Richard Spedding were locked together in mid-field placings all day, Spedding being particularly unlucky as having qualified top for the second run-off he was last away and caught the full force of the elements that were unleashed after Summers’ winning run. The duo still managed to head the Reynick of local man Nick Saunders, also with 1600cc Suzuki power, that had gone so well on Jersey. A mere five hundredths behind Saunders in the final shoot-out was a beaming Jonathan Flesher, who scored two points for ninth place on his first ever British run-off appearance. With his son Dylan now in Australia, Jonathan now shares the OMS 28-Suzuki with the vastly experienced Tim Thomson. Another delighted first time qualifier was Paul Jones, twice in the points aboard Darren Gumbley’s Suzuki powered Force TA and even contriving to beat Darren in the closing shootout.
          Nicola Menzies also scored points in the opening shoot-out, but failed to make the cut for the second one, while no Guernsey run-off would be complete without an appearance by one or both Le Messurier brothers in their Lemtech-Suzuki sports libre car. Both featured in round 17, with Paul just in the points and chased by Ian, but although Paul made the cut later on he just missed out on a score.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Le Val des Terres
FTD: Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 32.89s

Championship run-off, round 17: 1 Summers 32.96s: 2 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 33.53s; 3 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 34.00s; 4 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 34.78s;
5 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 34.86s; 6 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 35.83s; 7 Darren Gumbley (1.6 Force-Suzuki TA) 36.42s; 8 Paul Jones 1.6 Force-Suzuki TA) 36.55s; 9 Nicola Menzies (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 38.11s; 10 Paul Le Messurier (1.3 Lemtech-Suzuki) 40.20s; 11 Ian Le Messurier (1.3 Lemtech-Suzuki) 42.17s; Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) DNS
         
Championship run-off, round 18: 1 Summers 32.89s; 2 Willis 33.00s; 3 Hall 33.09s; 4 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 33.26s; 5 Uren 33.29s; 6 Warburton 34.33s; 7 Spedding 34.69s; 8 Nick Saunders (1.6 Reynick-Suzuki) 36.15s; 9 Jonathan Flesher (1.0 OMS-Suzuki 28) 36.20s; 10 Jones 36.56s; 11 Paul Le Messurier 41.46s; 12 Gumbley 100.37s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 18: 1 Summers 137pts; 2 Hall 106; 3 Ryder 103; 4 Willis 92; 5 Menzies 71; 6 Uren 68; 7 Gould 58; 8 Warburton 51; 9 Jack Cottrill 37; 10 Paul Haimes 22; etc.
         
All pictures by: Andrew Le Poidevin|www.tallpictures.com
           


 

After a second double win, Alex Summers' Championship lead is now over 30 points


Trevor Willis demostrates the lack of grip at the Terres


Wallace Menzies recovered well from a shaky start


Paul Jones twice scored points on his BHC debut


WILLIS BACK IN FRONT


Event 8 at Bouley Bay on 17/07/2024
There’s little doubt that Jersey’s Bouley Bay road course is one of 3-time BHC champion Trevor Willis’s favourite hills. It’s where he won his first British Championship run-off (and the first for OMS) back in 2007 with a new hill record. He also holds the record set in 2016 that remains unbeaten to this day. But at last, over five years since he last stood on the top step of a British hillclimb podium, he returned to Bouley Bay to take the opening run-off win, his first since Harewood in 2019 and once again, of course, aboard his faithful and ultra-highly developed 3.2-litre V8 OMS-RPE 28. On new tyres, which Willis considered to be the key to success at this venue, it was a superb drive, a fact freely acknowledged by his rivals who posed the strongest possible opposition and included rising star Matt Ryder, series leader and 2015 champion Alex Summers and 4-in-a-row champion Wallace Menzies – and with all four covered by just over half a second.
          The second run-off featured the same four drivers up front, but in a different order and a little farther apart. This time it was Summers that took a decisive win, his first on Jersey, with FTD, maintaining his series advantage over Ryder, who finished second ahead of Menzies and Willis. Earlier, the rapid quartet had been chased home by Guernseyman Nick Saunders’ Reynick-Suzuki, always a car/driver combination to be reckoned with in the Channel Islands. In a fine effort later on Saunders had qualified the bike-engined machine up front for the second run-off, ahead of Menzies’ Gould V8, but in the run-off itself he could only finish seventh and it was another increasingly rapid contender, Will Hall, that rounded off the top five, recovering from a tardy ninth place in the opening run-off due to a big moment at Café Corner.
          Dave Uren didn’t have the best of days either, his initial sixth place in the ex.Groves GR55B-NME becoming last place later on, with Radio Hairpin posing particular problems in the GR55. Despite being last to run, Saunders dropped a couple of places from his round 15 shot but remained the quickest of the five 1600cc single-seaters to make one or other of the run-offs, although David Warburton edged past the Reynick for sixth place in round 16. After qualifying twelfth, Sean Gould never got the GR59J wound up sufficiently to do better than eighth place, just clear of Darren Gumbley, but although he finished just out of the points each time, BHC run-off debutant Michael Salmon had a great day, twice qualifying his OMS-Vauxhall CF04, the car campaigned by Trevor Willis back in 2004/5.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Bouley Bay

FTD: Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 37.10s

Championship run-off, round 15: 1 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 37.23s; 2 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 37.68s; 3 Summers 37.74s: 4 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 37.79s; 5 Nick Saunders (1.6 Reynick-Suzuki) 38.51s; 6 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 38.53s; 7 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 38.76s; 8 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 38.83s; 9 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 39.14s; 10 Darren Gumbley (1.6 Force-Suzuki TA) 39.32s; 11 Michael Salmon (2.0 OMS CF04) 39.54s;12 Andy Bougourd (1.6 Force-Suzuki PT) 40.00s.
         
Championship run-off, round 16: 1 Summers 37.10s; 2 Ryder 37.61s; 3 Menzies 37.69s; 4 Willis 38.13s; 5 Hall 38.48s; 6 Warburton 38.92s; 7 Saunders 39.10s; 8 Gould 39.27s; 9 Gumbley 39.49s; 10 Spedding 39.50s; 11 Salmon 39.56s; 12 Uren 43.69s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 16: 1 Summers 117pts; 2 Ryder 103; 3 Hall 89; 4 Willis 76; 5 Menzies 64; 6 Gould 58; 7 Uren 54; 8 Warburton 40; 9 Jack Cottrill 37; 10 Paul Haimes 22; etc.

All pictures by: Andrew Le Poidevin|www.tallpictures.com
 

Trevor Willis took his first BHC win for five years at one of his favourite venues


With another run-off win and FTD, Alex Summers maintained his Championship advantage


Matt Ryder boosted his challenge with two second place finishes


Channel Islander Nick Saunders once again harried the BHC front runners


ANOTHER HAREWOOD DOUBLE FOR RYDER


Event 7 at Harewood on 07/07/2024
On a day when continuously changing weather varied between heavy rain and bright sunshine, hill record holder Matt Ryder came through it all to replicate his May Harewood success by taking both British run-off wins and FTD. In so doing, he regained second place on the Championship table and narrowed his points deficit to series leader Alex Summers.
          Sean Gould was first away in the opening run-off on a wet track and just as rain started again. In what would be the best conditions of the run-off he set what, on the face of it, would be the best time, only to have it disallowed shortly afterwards for committing that ultimate Harewood indiscretion – exceeding track limits over the finishing line. As the rain intensified Richard Spedding, next up, spun the Raptor into the tyre barrier at the Esses and bent a steering arm, which left him unable to qualify for the afternoon run-off. So the drivers of all three 1100cc cars in the run-off would now be in with a chance to score points. The first of them, Stuart Bickley, caught the worst of the rain but despite being almost invisible in a cloud of spray, brought his Force TA into seventh place just clear of David Tatham’s Firehawk and Steven Darley, the changeable qualifying conditions having allowed the Subaru Legacy in as the only saloon in the run-off when, running late, he enjoyed slightly drier conditions. Courtesy of the changeable weather, the remaining 1100, Ben Hamer’s 750 turbocharged OMS-Kawasaki, had qualified an unprecedented second overall, and although eventually bringing up the tail end of the scorers Hamer, with the defection of Gould and Spedding, earned his first ever British point.
           Ahead of Bickley at the sharp end of the field, David Warburton’s opening run in streaming wet conditions was discounted due to a timing problem. In the delay while this was sorted, the rain eased, marshals cleared water from the track and a re-run for David left him in an eventual sixth place. Trevor Willis found another quarter of a second for fifth, then a storming run by Alex Summers removed another whole second. The pace stepped up even further as Wallace Menzies, back to somewhere near his old form, took the lead with a time that Will Hall failed to match by a tenth. Last to run, Ryder ran a mere hundredth clear of Menzies to deny the 4-times champion his first win of the year.
          To everyone’s relief the second run-off was held in sunshine and on a drying track. Bickley and Tatham were in again with Bickley again coming off best, ahead of Johnathen Varley’s Predator in ninth place, the Force TA driver having been awarded a re-run after hitting a plastic marker post on the track, which had been dislodged by previous runner Dave Uren’s Gould. But a poor start by Uren had lost time and he finished out of the points, as did Trevor Willis, who toured up after a spin at the Esses. In seventh place behind Sean Gould, David Warburton chased home the big V8s, but this time Wallace Menzies, despite having qualified in a strong second place, slowed in the Esses as the front tyres lost grip, picking up speed again to finish fourth, just ahead of Will Hall.
           A superb run from Jack Cottrill brought the Dallara-XD home in a career best third place, but even a 125mph charge up Quarry Straight by Alex Summers was not enough to keep Ryder at bay and Matt stormed to FTD with his second win of the day, this time with a decisive 1.2 second margin.
          The opening two rounds of the BHC Tin Top Challenge, sponsored this year by AET Turbos, with each run-off held just before the BHC contenders’ 12-car equivalent, saw hot competition amongst the leading cars on a track that was still damp, despite a 4-hour interval between each 10-car run-off. The two Skoda Fabia rally cars of Roger Moran and Eynon Price, top rally and hillclimb exponents both, were among the early runners in the opening stanza with Moran  taking a lead which he held to the end, although Damien Bradley’s Subaru Legacy elbowed Price down to third place, only to lose out to Moran by a hundredth of a second. Bradley’s co-driver Steven Darley, warming himself and the car up for his forthcoming shot in the British Championship run-off, skated into the outfield at Country Corner when his foot slipped off the brake pedal but rejoined the track to finish eighth. But he more than made up for that in the second Tin Top shoot-out to finish third, less than a quarter of a second behind his co-driver.
          Simon Bainbridge had failed to qualify his massive SBR Chrono for the opening run-off, but the Audi powered sports libre car led the second one until top qualifier Bradley’s final run. On the split clocks, the Legacy driver led all the way for most of his run but lost out on the blast up Quarry Straight to finish half a second down. Nonetheless, he would lead the Tin Top Championship table at close of play and with Moran bringing the Skoda home fourth and Price failing to qualify, the 1997 BHC champion finished the day second overall. Consistent running in his Mitsubishi Evo left Stephen Moore left the Salisbury farmer third on the table ahead of a tie between Darley and the giant-killing Peugeot 205 of flying Scot Stuart Reid.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Harewood

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 50.31s

Championship run-off, round 13: 1 Ryder 55.29s; 2 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 55.30s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 55.40s; 4 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 56.10s; 5 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 57.05s; 6 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 57.31s; 7 Stuart Bickley (1.1 Force-Suzuki TA) 57.84s; 8 David Tatham (1.1 DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) 58.46s; 9 Stephen Darley (2.3t Subaru Legacy) 62.47s; 10 Ben Hamer (0.75t OMS-Kawasaki 28) 68.74s; Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) DSQ; Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) DNF.

Championship run-off, round 14: 1 Ryder 50.31s; 2 Summers 51.51s; 3 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 53.52s; 4 Menzies 53.64s; 5 Hall 54.26s; 6 Gould 54.52s; 7 Warburton 55.11s; 8 Bickley 55.43s; 9 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 56.08s; 10 Tatham 56.57s; 11 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 57.52s; 12 Willis 70.11s.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 14: 1 Summers 99pts; 2 Ryder 85; 3 Hall 81; 4 Willis 59; 5 Gould 55; 6= Uren and Menzies 49; 8 Cottrill 37; 9 Warburton 31; 10 Paul Haimes 22; etc.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 1: 1 Roger Moran (1.6t Skoda Fabia R5) 67.23s; 2 Damien Bradley (2.3t Subaru Legacy) 62.74s; 3 Eynon Price (1.6t Skoda Fabia R5) 63.60s; 4 Stephen Moore (2.3t Mitsubishi Evo 6 RS) 66.12s; 5 Robbie Birrell (2.5t Porsche Cayman) 68.14s; 6 Stuart Reid (1.9 Peugeot 205) 68.38s; 7 Mark Lawrence (2.5t Porsche Cayman) 71.84s; 8 Stephen Darley (2.3t Subaru Legacy) 73.07s; 9 Jonathan Williamson (3.5 Porsche 911 Carrera) 73.21s;  Jim Herbert (2.3t Mitsubishi Evo 5) DNS.

BHC Tin Top Challenge, round 2: 1 Simon Bainbridge (4.2t SBR Chrono-Audi V8) 61.24s; 2 Bradley 61.76s; 3 Darley 61.89s; 4 Moran 62.67s; 5 Reid 65.07s; 6 Moore 65.35s; 7 Birrell 67.43s; 8 Jock Ramsey (2.0 Opel Manta) 69.76s; 9 Lawrence 69.90s; 10 Peter Herbert (3.8 Porsche 911) 72.34s.

BHC Tin Top Challenge positions after round 2: 1 Bradley 18pts; 2 Moran 17; 3 Moore 17; 4= Reid and Darley 11; 6= Birrell and Bainbridge 10; 8 Price 8; 9 Lawrence 6; 10 Ramsey 3; etc.


 

As he had in May, Matt Ryder proved unbeatable at Harewood (Stuart Wing)


An on-form Jack Cottrill scored his best ever British run-off finish (Stuart Wing)


Stuart Bickley splashed through the worst of the weather to finish seventh in the opening run-off (Stuart Wing)


Roger Moran won the opening Tin Top run-off of the season (Stuart Wing)


SUMMERS COUNTERS GOULD RUSH


Event 6 at Doune on 16/06/2024
For the British Hillclimb Championship’s first visit to Doune in 2024, the two run-offs were held on consecutive days and in contrasting conditions. Despite dry weather on Saturday giving way to persistent rain on the Sunday, Sean Gould and Alex Summers battled out front all weekend, taking a win and a second place apiece. Having successfully repaired the GR59 after Matt Ryder’s accident at Shelsley a fortnight earlier, Saturday’s win with FTD, just over a tenth clear of his rival, was a fine result for Sean. Last to run on Sunday, Summers produced an imperious drive in the wet to deny Gould the win by well over half a second and with Matt Ryder scoring poorly on Sunday, the Firestorm driver’s lead at the head of the table now stretched to sixteen points over the man now in second place, Will Hall.
          After a poor result on Sunday, Ryder slipped to third place on the table with Trevor Willis still fourth, but Gould’s successful weekend promoted him to fifth overall ahead of Dave Uren, another driver to score relatively poorly in Scotland. David Warburton, however, was in sensational form all weekend, recording his best ever finish in a run-off with third place on Sunday.
          While only 0.11 secs separated Gould and Summers on Saturday, for much of his run Alex was ahead until the time slipped away in between the Esses and the finish. Qualifying ahead of his co-driver, Sean had felt a bit less pressure as he was, for once, not running first on the road and having to bear in mind that Matt still had his run to come. Re-acclimatizing himself after Shelsley, Matt had been improving his times throughout the day and his opening run-off shot remained the best until the last three drivers took their runs, when Will Hall slotted into third ahead of him by just three hundredths.
           Trevor Willis ran fifth, a quarter of a second ahead of Warburton, while Wallace Menzies continued his progress with the rebuilt Gould to finish just three hundredths ahead of Richard Spedding in his Raptor. Dave Uren was struggling a little in ninth place while Johnathen Varley scored his first point of the season in the Predator. 1100cc single seater runners Dave Tatham and Stuart Bickley had qualified just two hundredths apart but while Tatham kept the car on the track on his run, finishing eleventh, Bickley skated on to the grassy outfield and out of the points at the top of the notorious East Brae, finishing nearly 4 seconds off the pace.
          It was a different story for Bickley during Sunday’s wet conditions. He qualified the little Force TA in a fine sixth place for the second run-off, going on to score two points for his best result of the year so far. Up at the sharp end, Summers qualified top again by nearly a second from a revitalized Wallace Menzies, while this time around Varley was the one who failed to qualify and was replaced in the runners by Jack Cottrill, who had just missed out on Saturday. It was Jack’s first visit to Doune in the Dallara and he made steady progress as the weekend wore on. Having lost time in the closing stages of his climb on Saturday, Summers was determined to avoid a repetition and was visibly pushing through the last corner to to pull out that half second lead over Gould. Warburton had topped the qualifying sheets for some while and carried that form into the run off with his third place, while a relieved Menzies had his best finish of the season in fourth, moving up to seventh place on the table.
          Will Hall and Trevor Willis dropped down the finishing order in Sunday’s tricky conditions, whereas Dave Uren moved up into a more respectable top six place. Cottrill showed that he was rapidly getting the hang of Doune in the Dallara with eighth while the fast qualifying Bickley took no risks this time, while still taking a well deserved ninth. Matt Ryder was having trouble getting the car off the line and a slow getaway led to his final scoring position ahead of Spedding and Tatham.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Doune

FTD: Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ)

Championship run-off, round 11: 1 Gould 35.45s; 2 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 35.56s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 36.37s; 4 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 36.40s; 5 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 36.77s; 6 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 37.05s; 7 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 37.84s; 8 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 37.87s; 9 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 38.17s; 10 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 38.37s; 11 David Tatham (1.1 DJ Firehawk-Suzuki) 39.35s; 12 Stuart Bickley (1.1 Force-Suzuki TA) 42.97s.

Championship run-off, round 12: 1 Summers 39.46s; 2 Gould 40.10s; 3 Warburton 40.38s; 4 Menzies 40.57s; 5  Hall 40.65s; 6  Uren 40.77s; 7  Willis 41.30s; 8 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 41.58s; 9 Bickley 42.17s; 10 Ryder 42.25s; 11 Spedding 42.67s; 12 Tatham 43.20s.
         
British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 12: 1 Summers 83pts; 2 Hall 67; 3 Ryder 64; 4 Willis 53; 5 Gould 50; 6 Uren 49; 7 Menzies 33; 8 Cottrill 29; 9= Haimes and Warburton 22; etc.
 

Sean Gould set the outright pace for the weekend in winning Saturday's run-off (David Baxter)


Alex Summers retaliated on Sunday to extend his Championship lead to 16 points (David Baxter)


David Warburton scored his best ever BHC finish with third place on Sunday (David Baxter)


Stuart Bickley made up for this indiscretion on Saturday with a fine sixth placed qualifier the following day (David Baxter)


SUMMERS TAKES THE LEAD


Event 5 at Shelsley Walsh on 02/06/2024
Another two run-off wins, this time at Shelsley Walsh, put Alex Summers firmly in charge of the 2024 British Hillclimb Championship. Now with a seven point series advantage, he led Matt Ryder for the first time this season. Ryder chased hard in the opening run-off, closing to within thirteen hundredths of the 2015 champion, but towards the end of an afternoon that had already seen an unprecedented series of damaging incidents, fortunately without injury to any of the drivers, Ryder himself suffered a high speed accident after contacting the barriers approaching the Esses during his second qualifying runs. The Gould ended its run against the Recticel barrier at Bottom Ess, which had already seen more than its fair share of action during the afternoon. Fortunately Matt, too, emerged unhurt, in itself a fine testament to the integrity of the GR59 chassis, but he was clearly sidelined from the second run-off, as was his co-driver Sean Gould, who by that time had already qualified the car.
          ‘I didn’t think 22sec runs were on today’, admitted Summers after a masterfully smooth performance in the morning run-off which remained good enough for FTD, after both he and Ryder had set the only two sub-23sec runs of the weekend. Another good weekend for Will Hall saw the Midlander bring his GR59 home in third place and with the non-appearance of Ryder, he improved to a season-best second place in the afternoon. He would end the day ten points clear of Trevor Willis, but after a fifth place finish in the morning, just two hundredths behind regular Shelsley winner Dave Uren, a typically determined shot by Trevor, his relatively underpowered OMS V8 at a disadvantage on Shelsley’s steep gradients, monstered the tricky Esses sector to close to within a hundredth of a second of Hall for a fine third place in the afternoon run-off.
          No stranger to the winners’ rostrum at Shelsley, Uren had a difficult weekend in the ex.Groves GR55B. Considerable paddock work to repair the car’s suspension had followed co-driver Nicola Menzies’ brush with the Esses bank during Saturday morning practice. Subsequent handling problems were cured by tyre pressure adjustment and two fourth places for Dave were the result. Still not entirely at home in his rebuilt GR59, Wallace Menzies followed Willis and Uren home for sixth place in the opening run-off, but could do no better in the afternoon as Jack Cottrill edged ahead by seven hundredths in the day’s only run-off appearance in the DJ/Dallara-XD. A steering column failure in the morning had been rectified at lunchtime after his father John had returned home for the spare!
          Chasing Menzies hard all day was Paul Haimes’ relatively diminutive version of the GR59 and with seventh place each time he would finish level on points with the four-times champion in eighth place. Even Sean Gould was unable to catch the flying Haimes in the opening shoot-out, finishing four hundredths adrift of his customer’s bike powered machine and ahead of Dave Warburton. The driver of the normally aspirated Gould-Suzuki hung on to his accustomed tenth place on the series table as he moved up to eighth place in the afternoon, six hundredths clear of fellow 1600cc class runner Richard Spedding, the Yorkshireman making his first appearance of the year in his Raptor. The morning run-off had seen a tie for the final point between Zach Zammit, the former Maltese champion making his own first BHC appearance of the year in the turbocharged Empire Wraith shared with Ulsterman Will Loughridge, and Graham Wynn’s Gould-Judd, leaving Spedding out of the points as he dialled himself back into the fray. An incident-packed afternoon had caused long delays, and with the run-off contenders facing low sun and lengthening shadows, Zammit bagged his second point of the day in the closing shoot-out, ahead of Andy Greenen’s Empire Evo 3, as the event headed for a 7.00pm finish.
 
Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Shelsley Walsh

FTD: Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 22.78s

Championship run-off, round 9: 1 Summers 22.78s; 2 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 22.91s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 23.50s; 4 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 23.74s; 5 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 23.76s; 6 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 24.19s; 7 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 24.31s; 8 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 24.35s; 9 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 24.75s; 10= Zak Zammit (1.3t Empire Wraith-Suzuki) 24.77s; 10= Graham Wynn (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GRW59) 24.77s; 12 Richard Spedding (1.6 GWR Raptor 2-Suzuki) 25.02s.

Championship run-off, round 10: 1 Summers 23.33s; 2 Hall 23.75s; 3 Willis 23.76s; 4 Uren 24.30s; 5 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 24.54s; 6 Menzies 24.61s; 8 Haimes 24.91s;
7 Warburton 25.20s; 9 Spedding 25.26s; 10 Zammit 25.37s; 11 Andrew Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo 3-Suzuki) 25.43s; Gould DNS.

 British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 10: 1 Summers 64pts; 2 Ryder 57; 3 Hall 53; 4 Willis 43; 5 Uren 42; 6 Gould 31; 7 Cottrill 26; 8= Haimes and Menzies 22; 10 Warburton 9; etc.

 

As shadows lengthen, Alex Summers heads for his second run-off win of a long day (Stuart Wing)


Will Hall boosted his Championship hunt with his first runner-up finish of the season (Stuart Wing)


Trevor Willis closed to within a hundredth of Hall's second place in the early evening (Stuart Wing)


Dave Uren chased the top three home each time (Stuart Wing)


SUMMERS' TRUNCATED GURSTON


Event 4 at Gurston Down on 26/05/2024
Alex Summers and British Championship leader Matt Ryder continued their previous day’s duel on the second day of Gurston Down’s BHC double-header. After qualifying top for the opening run-off, Summers beat his rival by a quarter of a second to take his second consecutive win of the weekend and close to within four points on the series table.
          Another great duel looked in prospect for the final shoot-out of the weekend but a distinctly unpromising weather forecast finally proved all too accurate. After Saturday’s perfect conditions, on Sunday the 2024 Championship would once again be disrupted by heavy rain, which arrived just over halfway through the second class runs. On the approach to the fast Hollow Bend, where in the dry the fastest cars had earlier been reaching speeds well in excess of 140mph, the standing water across the track could not be dispersed. After a long delay and several track inspections, the BARC(SW) organising team were reluctantly forced to abandon the meeting just over halfway through the second set of class runs. So the cancellation of the day’s second run-off meant that before the end of May, three out eight Championship rounds had now been lost due to adverse weather conditions.
          Despite the odd light shower during practice, track conditions improved for the afternoon and were good for the round 7 shoot-out, with not only those record speeds down into Hollow but a day’s best 157.5mph passage through the finish line by Ryder that almost matched his speed the previous day. As he had twice done on Saturday, Will Hall chased the two leaders home, with Sean Gould making no mistakes this time to finish just sixteen hundredths adrift of his customer’s car. Another seven hundredths behind Gould, Wallace Menzies showed that he was back on the pace with the rebuilt GR59M, but with only 12 points on the board compared to the series leader’s 48, the Scot would need some seriously good results from now on to get back in contention.
          A top six finish for Dave Uren left the Gould-NME driver level on points with Sean Gould for a Championship fifth place, with Paul Haimes next up in the bike-engined GR59 turbocar to almost match his round 5 seventh place and once again edge out Jack Cottrill’s DJ/Dallara-XD, the battling duo split this time by six hundredths instead of five! Trevor Willis’s normally rapid pace in through the tricky Karousel section was a little below par this time and the OMS V8 driver had to settle for ninth place ahead of David Warburton, who had finally wrestled his normally aspirated, ex.works GR59 into the points for the third time of asking this weekend. Out of luck this time were Andy Greenen in his Empire Evo 3 and Johnathen Varley, the reigning Midland Hillclimb and British Hillclimb Cup champion having his first BHC run-off shot of the year in the sleek Predator-TKD V6.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Gurston Down

FTD: Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 26.04s

Championship run-off, round 7: 1 Summers 26.04s; 2 Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 26.29s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 26.69s; 4 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 26.85s; 5 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 26.92s; 6 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 27.17s; 7 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 27.49s; 8 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 27.55s; 9 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 27.62s; 10 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 28.53s; 11 Andrew Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo 3-Suzuki) 28.75s; 12 Johnathen Varley (2.0 GWR Predator-TKD YV8) 28.93s.

Championship run-off, round 8: Cancelled due to adverse weather conditions    
         
British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 8: 1 Ryder 48pts; 2 Summers 44; 3 Hall 36; 4 Willis 29; 5= Uren and Gould 28; 7 Cottrill 20; 8 Haimes 14; 9 Menzies 12; 10 Warburton 4; etc.

 

Alex Summers set the outright pace to close in on the Championship leader (Steve Lister)


Matthew Ryder came under increasing pressure during the Gurston weekend (Steve Lister)


Split by hundredths throughout the weekend were Paul Haimes ...... (Steve Lister)


...... and Jack Cottrill (Steve Lister)


RYDER AND SUMMERS GO HEAD-TO-HEAD


Event 3 at Gurston Down on 25/05/2024
Matt Ryder maintained his early grip on the British Hillclimb Championship with a win in the first of the four run-offs scheduled for Gurston Down’s weekend BHC double-header, although in the face of a mounting challenge from Alex Summers who, after closing to within a tenth of a second of the Gould driver in the opening shoot-out, pulled out almost three tenths over his rival to win the second stanza. With his co-driver Sean Gould first to run each time, it was touch and go as to whether Ryder would make the startline for the second run-off after Gould, who had brought the ‘semi-works’ GR59 home in a strong fourth place in the opening shoot-out, buried the nose of the car in the barrier at Ashes at the start of the late afternoon round. But after rapid paddock work as the run-off progressed, top qualifier Ryder made it to the line and was able to defend his series lead from Summers, who moments before had set what would be the overall run-off pace.
          Once again the relative lack of urge available from Trevor Willis’s bike-based RPE engine when compared to the big hitters proved a disadvantage on Gurston’s power slopes. With only sixth and seventh places respectively, he slipped from second place on the Championship table after Harewood to fourth overall. And with Gould scoring only once, after two strong third place finishes in his GR59 Will Hall took over the driver/constructor’s third spot on the table. Two solid fourth place finishes kept Dave Uren in the hunt aboard his Nicholson McLaren powered Gould GR55B, a car that’s now seen continuous service since 2005, when it first appeared in the hands of Martin Groves.
          Naturally, the focus of attention in the paddock was on the return of 4-times British champion Wallace Menzies and his Gould-XD GR59M. Tom New had completed a mountain of work to repair the car after its accident at Craigantlet earlier in the month and the car had finally arrived at Gurston at 3.00am on the morning of the event. The opening round of Wallace’s 2024 campaign proved somewhat inauspicious, inevitable teething problems in practice leading to a lowly twelfth place in the opening run-off after the car had encountered a fuel starvation problem. But things looked far more promising after a fifth place in the closing run-off, within a second of Summers’ winning time. After being edged out of seventh place in the opening shoot-out by five hundredths at the hands of Paul Haimes’ turbocharged GR59-Suzuki, Jack Cottrill chased Menzies home with a top six finish in his increasingly effective DJ modified Dallara-XD.
          Buoyed by his recent outright win at Shelsley Walsh in the Gould-Judd GR59 and with Scott Moran again on hand to provide support, Graham Wynn chased Cottrill home in round 5 while Alex Coles, sharing a supercharged Force-Suzuki TA this year with Kelvin Broad, scored his first point of the year for tenth place ahead of Dave Warburton’s GR59 and Menzies. Coles went one better in the closing run-off to confine Andy Greenen to the single point in his 1600cc Empire Evo 3.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Gurston Down

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 25.89s

Championship run-off, round 5: 1 Ryder 25.89s; 2 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 25.95s; 3 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 26.34s; 4 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 26.70s; 5 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 26.93s; 6 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 27.07s; 7 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 27.13s; 8 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 27.18s; 9 Graham Wynn (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GRW59) 27.95s; 10 Alex Coles (1.6s Force-Suzuki TA) 28.20s; 11 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 28.28s; 12 Wallace Menzies (3.3 Gould-Cosworth XD GR59M) 29.46s.

Championship run-off, round 6: 1 Summers 26.32s; 2 Ryder 26.60s; 3 Hall 27.04s; 4 Uren 27.11s; 5 Menzies 27.25s; 6 Cottrill 27.65s; 7 Willis 27.78s; 8 Haimes 28.28s; 9 Coles 28.67s; 10 Andrew Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo 3-Suzuki) 28.94s; 11 Warburton 29.15s; 12 Gould DNF – accident.

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 6: 1 Ryder 39pts; 2 Summers 34; 3 Hall 28; 4 Willis 27; 5 Uren 23; 6 Gould 21; 7 Cottrill 17; 8 Haimes 10; 9 Menzies 6; 10= Tom Weaver, Warburton and Coles 3; etc.

 

Matt Ryder set the day's outright pace to maintain his Championship lead (Steve Lister)


Will Hall would finish a solid third throughout the weekend (Steve Lister)


Wallace Menzies was soon back on the pace in the rebuilt Gould (Steve Lister)


Alex Coles scored his first points of the year in the supercharged Force TA (Steve Lister)


RYDER REIGNS AT HAREWOOD


Event 2 at Harewood on 12/05/2024
Following the postponement of Prescott’s opening BHC event and the cancellation of the Craigantlet run-offs, both victims of wet weather, the British Hillclimb Championship finally got underway at Harewood under sunny skies. With his Gould still being repaired after a major accident at Craigantlet, when the car left the road after hitting what amounted to a river flowing across the fastest part of the course, defending champion Wallace Menzies’ was not present. But in his absence, Harewood hill record-holder Matt Ryder gave notice that he was set to pose a major threat to the 4-time champion in 2024, with FTD and both run-off wins in the ‘semi-works’ Gould-Judd GR59. And with two typically determined charges in his much campaigned, but continuously developed OMS V8, a delighted Trevor Willis finished in second place each time to score his best combined result for five years.
          With both drivers running in the 47s, Ryder set the outright pace for the day as he sped to victory in the opening run-off. Willis closed to within less than two tenths in the second bout, leaving Alex Summers Firestorm-XD and Sean Gould, sharing the Gould-Judd as usual with Ryder, to fight a see-saw battle for third place in their wake. Will Hall’s newly liveried GR59 sister car ran fifth each time ahead of another see-saw duel, this time between Dave Uren, the ex.Groves Gould-NME still going well in his hands, and Jack Cottrill’s heavier, Cosworth XD engined, Dallara as the pair disputed sixth and seventh places. A fine eight place in the opening run-off was arguably one of the drives of the day, young Tom Weaver taking almost a second off his qualifying time as he harried the big hitters in his 1-litre Empire-Suzuki to lead Paul Haimes GR59 turbocar by almost half a second.
          With Weaver not qualifying for the closing shoot-out, eighth place there, also in the 50sec
bracket, was taken by David Warburton, who had missed the earlier cut in his 1600cc GR59-Suzuki. Having finished out of the points first time up, together with Harewood Ladies’ record-holder Nicola Menzies, just two hundredths was enough for Harry Pick’s XD-powered OMS to edge out Haimes, who had to settle for the final point. Earlier, this had been bagged by the other 1-litre car to qualify for the points battle, class winner Stuart Bickley’s Force-Suzuki TA. Together with Andy Greenen’s 1.6-litre Empire Evo3 Suzuki, he finished out of the points at close of play.

Motorsport UK/Nova Motorsport British Hillclimb Championship, Harewood

FTD: Matthew Ryder (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 47.51s

Championship run-off, round 3: 1 Ryder 47.51s; 2 Trevor Willis (3.2 OMS-RPE 28) 47.90s; 3 Sean Gould (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59BJ) 48.42s; 4 Alex Summers (2.7 DJ Firestorm-Cosworth XD) 48.59s; 5 Will Hall (4.0 Gould-Judd DB4 GR59J) 48.83s; 6 Dave Uren (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 49.21s; 7 Jack Cottrill (2.7 DJ Dallara Cosworth XD) 49.70s; 8 Tom Weaver (1.0 Empire Evo-Suzuki) 50.98s; 9 Paul Haimes (1.3t Gould-Suzuki GR59) 51.41s; 10 Stuart Bickley (1.1 Force-Suzuki TA) 51.47s; 11 Harry Pick (3.2 OMS-Cosworth XD 28) 51.51s; 12 Nicola Menzies (3.5 Gould-NME GR55B) 51.73s. 

Championship run-off, round 4: 1 Ryder 48.14s; 2 Willis 48.31s; 3 Summers 48.70s; 4 Gould 48.77s; 5 Hall 49.01s; 6 Cottrill 49.49s; 7 Uren 49.61s; 8 David Warburton (1.6 Gould-Suzuki GR59) 50.39s; 9 Pick 51.26s; 10 Haimes 51.28s; 11 Andy Greenen (1.6 Empire Evo 3-Suzuki) 51.64s; 12 Bickley 52.02s.       

British Hillclimb Championship positions after round 4: 1 Ryder 20pts; 2 Willis18; 3= Gould and Summers 15; 5 Hall 12; 6= Cottrill and Uren 9; 8= Weaver, Haimes and Warburton; etc.


 

Matt Ryder enjoyed the best possible start to his 2024 BHC season (Steve Wilkinson)


Trevor Willis scored his best combined result for five years (Steve Wilkinson)


Will Hall kept his newly liveried Gould in amongst the front runners (Steve Wilkinson)


Tom Weaver harried the big hitters in his 1-litre Empire (Steve Wilkinson)


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