Contact

Trevor Willis had wheel to wall contact twice at the Doune rounds of the Nicholson McLaren British Hillclimb Championship at the weekend. During practice on Saturday with greasy track conditions following morning rain, Trevor slid into the infamous wall on the lower reaches of the hill. The incident caused significant damage to the offside suspension front & rear of the new OMS 25 destroying both wheel rims & fracturing the rear brake disc.

Team OMS had sufficient new suspension components to repair the car, but did not have a spare brake disc. Trevor & Steve repaired the car in the paddock during Saturday afternoon, to the suprise of some in the paddock who thought this would be the end of Trevor's meeting. The disc problem was resolved when Steve took a disc from his OMS 1100CF that he was competing in, to ensure Trevor's car would run the following day.

Accepting the offer of a share drive with Trevor, Steve was the first to take the car back up the hill in Sunday morning practice, checking all was well before Trevor took his practice run. In the first competition runs the track conditions improved & Trevor qualified 5th fastest for the championship run off, finishing a strong 3rd despite torrential rain falling just as the run off commenced.

In the wet afternoon class runs Trevor qualified 4th fastest for the second championship run off, but clipped a wheel on the wall just before Oak Tree resulting in the tyre deflating & ending the run.

However despite it being a challenging weekend, the Saturday morning incident did help to identify a car problem that has been ongoing since Shelsley Walsh 3 weeks previously & this has now been resolved. Trevor hopes to have better fortune at the Harewood championship meeting in 2 weeks time.

Date: 20/06/2011 | Author: L.Owen