Welcome to the Pleasure Dome
Steve Day joined a long list of hill climb luminaries at Prescott over the weekend, who have driven the highly entertaining 600cc OMS Hornet now owned by Steve Owen and Gary Hill. The former David Oldridge car was this weekend in the sole hands of Harry Pick for the BMTR Midland Hillclimb Championship and TTC Group Top ten Challenge meeting, as Harry's co-driver for the season Gary Hill was absent for this event. So when an un-repairable problem on the Steve Day Raptor side-lined the car during practice, Steve Owen offered Steve Day a drive in the Hornet.
Steve Day sitting in the OMS Hornet with Steve Owen alongside
Following an installation run during Sunday's morning practice session, Steve posted a couple of good timed runs in the amalgamated 600 and 1100cc racing car class. After watching his in-car film footage Steve commented that he could see where he could gain more time - maybe another drive Steve?
Harry had his best hillclimb weekend to date, lowering his personal best time on each run and finishing on 44.33 which was quicker than his regular co-driver Gary Hill when they were at Prescott earlier in the season.
The up to 2000cc Sports Libre class fielded two OMS SC1 sports cars. Regular BMTR Midland Hillclimb Championship contenders Charles Williams and Tim Cross in their ex-Rob Stevens car were joined by Andrew Short in the ex-Steve and Lynn Owen sister car. Andrew took the class win on 44.02 from Tim on 44.94 with Charles snatching third in class.
Williams/Cross car on the left and Andrew Short's SC1 to the right
OMS honours for the highly competitive 1100cc racing car class were fought out between Simon Andrews in the OMS 28 he shares with Bernie Kevill and Mark Goodyear in the Hornet he shares with his wife Anne Goodyear. This time Simon had the upper hand but only just; a mere 1/100th of a second separated the two drivers, with Simon taking 2nd in class on 41.68 from Mark who secured 3rd with his time of 41.69 seconds. Bernie rounded out the top six with his 42.65 to take the final class championship points placing. Forrest Eyles ran a 42.81 on his first timed run with the OMS CF, but a failed second run prevented him from challenging Bernie for the points scoring position.
The winner of the 1600cc racing car division was never in any doubt following first timed runs. Steve Owen's opener of 39.71 was sufficiently fast enough to take the class win, but he went on to lower his time still further in the afternoon winning the class on 38.69 seconds. Runner up in class was Mike Lee in his OMS 2000M on a time of 41.06 Lynn Owen finished 4th with her best run of the day 42.10 and John Stockley in his OMS 2000M ran a 44.20 with Steve Spiers just behind him on 45.92 seconds.
Trevor Willis won the unlimited capacity racing car class having set two identical class run times of 37.14 seconds. Runner up Will Hall missed the top spot by 1/100th finishing on a best class run time of 37.15
In the TTC Group Top Ten Run Offs Steve Owen and Trevor Willis both qualified, with Steve 5th fastest qualifier for run off one and 3rd fastest for run off two: Trevor was the top qualifier for both. Steve improved on his qualify time to hold onto 5th place in the first run off with 38.91 whilst Trevor's 36.73 secured a further win for the championship leader. In the second run off both drivers again held onto their qualifying positions with Steve taking an excellent 3rd place with his 38.47 second run: his fastest time of the weekend. Trevor again took the run off win also with his fastest time over the weekend 36.38 and set Fastest Time of Day too.
Steve Owen, Trevor Willis and Lynn Owen
A very pleasurable weekend for all concerned; but more so especially for regular OMS drivers and also for Steve Day who would otherwise have been a spectator.
To view times and splits for this meeting click here.
Thanks to Harry Pick, Charles Williams and Alan Cameron for supplying the photographs.
Date: 30/06/2014 | Author: L.Owen