My Oh My

What fabulous competition at the MSA Avon Tyres/TTC Group British Hillclimb and MSA Hillclimb Leaders Championship meeting, hosted by Woolbridge Motor Club at Wiscombe Park in Devon this weekend. The British Championship contenders had a very short turnaround time for car preparation this week,  as most were on the ferry returning from Guernsey on Monday, before setting off to travel to Devon on Friday of the same week.

The glorious British summer weather held, providing ideal conditions for competitors to really push on and this showed in the results. Only a small number of OMS car/driver combos were on the entry and in the main they were competitors from the south of England: or at least from south of the Midlands.

1100cc racing car regulars Forrest Eyles and Steve Loadsman represented the OMS marque in their class. Forrest in the OMS CF he has campaigned this season set his best time over the weekend at 39.39 seconds. Steve runs a space framed OMS R/A and is a regular Gurston Down competitor, his time of 43.49 placed him 6th in the class giving him a Leaders Championship class point.

OMS R/A of Steve Loadsman

Again there were only two OMS runners in the 1600cc racing car class: Ian Tucker and Neal Coles. Both drive OMS CF variants, Neal runs an 04 and had the upper hand today over Ian's 07 version. Neal took 3rd in class with his 40.03 run just shy of that sub 40 second climb. Ian finished 4th with his time of 40.63 seconds.

OMS CF07 in foreground with CF04 behind

The final racing car class, the unlimited capacity cars also had just two OMS runners: Jason Mourant and Trevor Willis. Jason did well in the Channel Islands securing his first top 12 run off place and four British Championship points in the V8 powered OMS 25. Clearly still on a roll, Jason's best class time 37.56 gave him 6th in class. He also qualified the car for both run offs finishing 8th in run off one and 10th in the second run off: doubling his Bouley Bay points tally. He now has 8 British Championship points and sits 15th overall in the Championship.

Jason Mourant OMS 25 V8

Trevor had a rather mixed weekend, leading the pack in qualifying and then slipping down the field during the run offs. His first timed run 34.05 took the class lead and set the pace for the first run off. However during his run off climb, he suffered from front end under steer on the new tyres he was running and then the oil light came on, not surprisingly he slipped back to 34.45 to take third place. It turned out to be nothing more than an oil warning sensor glitch and nothing to worry about, but the light coming on was enough of a distraction to cost him valuable time.

Will Hall took a fine run off win on 33.89 seconds; and also set a new outright hill record. The car development work Ray Rowan has been doing with Will is clearly bearing fruit, as his time shows.

Ttrevor Willis OMS 28 V8

Once again in the second timed class runs Trevor was the fastest man to qualify. Despite his morning run off disappointment this class winning time of 33.79 seconds set a new class record, but more importantly snatched the outright hill record back that only a short while ago was taken from him by Will Hall.

And then just when you think you've turned a corner and things are going your way, it all goes pear shaped once more. Although Trevor was fastest qualifier he only managed to finish third again in the second run off. This time he put it down to some new rear tyres he had fitted for this run and the rear end seemed to have lost all grip. Perhaps it’s best just to move on Trevor and hope for better luck next weekend at Craigantlet?

Meanwhile Will Hall still had the matter of a hill record on his mind and stormed up the hill in 33.79 seconds; equalling Trevor's new outright hill record set in the class runs. Great effort Will, hopefully it will be acknowledged in future meeting programmes that you equalled the record.

My oh my what a meeting, personal best times for some drivers, class records for others and an outright hill record that was beaten three times during the meeting, finally settled in Trevor Willis' favour.

To view run times please click here or go to the Woolbridge MC website results page here.

To view the British Hillclimb and Hillclimb Leaders Championship tables please click here.

Photographs courtesy of Tim Wilson, BHC Co-ordinator.

Date: 27/07/2014 | Author: L.Owen