Everything is Alright
This weekend saw the first visit of the season to the historic Shelsley Walsh venue, for the MSA Avon Tyres TTC Group British Hillclimb and MSA Hillclimb Leaders Championships. The meeting was also the fourth round of the BMTR Midland Hill Climb Championship.
Most of the UK Hillclimb fraternity will now be aware of an incident on the hill during the afternoon class runs, involving one of the British Hillclimb Championship contenders Wallace Menzies. The very good news today is that Wallace is alright and relatively unscathed. The Midland Automobile Club has issued a statement saying “They are pleased to report that he was released from hospital with 4 stitches, a cracked cheek bone and bruising.” Lynn, Steve and fellow OMS drivers send their best wishes to Wallace, Nicola and all the DJ Racecar team.
Sunday’s competition runs for all OMS drivers were thankfully incident free. Tim Cross drove the OMS SC1 sports car to take the sports libre class win on 30.92 ahead of his co-driver and the car’s owner Charles Williams on 31.01 seconds. Harry Pick was the only 600cc racing car entry. New to this car for 2014, he lowered his times throughout the weekend finishing on a very respectable time of 30.81
Mark Goodyear took a fine 1100cc class win in the OMS Hornet he shares with his wife Annie. Now running in 1000cc guise, his time of 27.82 wrapped up the class on his first visit to the hill since having this new smaller capacity engine installed. Simon Andrews took third in class with his time of 28 seconds dead; having messed up his gear change in the Esses he is confident of running in the 27’s when the championship returns to Shelsley in August. Fifth place went to Derek Sweeney in his OMS 2000M on a 28.32 Whilst Bernie Kevill set a personal best time of 28.47 seconds, which placed him seventh in class.
Steve Day and Steve Owen resumed their season battle in the 1600cc racing car class and this time they were joined by Richard Spedding. Despite what was described by the commentary as a mercurial performance in the Esses by Steve Owen, he had to settle for second in class behind Spedding: their times were 25.63 and 25.09 respectively. Steve Day took third place following a failed morning run and a more circumspect second run of 26.62 seconds. Lynn Owen snatched 6th with her time of 27.92 to take the last points scoring place in the class.
The 2.0 litre racing car class featured Neville Rollason in the supercharged OMS 28 and Andy McBeath in his supercharged OMS 25. Nev was delighted to have set a personal best time of 26.69 seconds in his new car. Andy was eager to drop into the 26’s too but failed to do so on this occasion by just 5/100ths of a second, finishing on 27.04
Andy McBeath OMS 25
Neville Rollason OMS 28
Local resident Trevor Willis had a day of mixed fortune. His morning class run qualified him second fastest for the first of the day’s British Hillclimb Championship run offs. In the run off the top four finishing places were covered by 0.39 of a second with Willis taking his 5th run off win of the season with his time of 23.11 seconds a mere 4/100ths ahead of second placed driver Jos Goodyear on 23.15 and 16/100ths in front of Will Hall’s time of 23.27 seconds. Trevor qualified for the second run off, but during the run off the car stopped just beyond Kennel Bend apparently due to a loose wire on the fuel pump: unfortunately giving him his second no score of the season. However his time of 23.11 in the morning run off secured him the honour of Fastest Time of Day.
Trevor Willis OMS 28
The championships move to Loton Park in Shropshire next weekend, where hopefully there will be no incidents and more close competition across the classes.
To view class times and splits please click here.
To view the class results click here.
To see the championship point scorers and positions click here.
Date: 2/06/2014 | Author: L. Owen