Having never visited a hillclimb event and, I have to confess, Knowing very little about this genre of motorsport other than fastest car up the course wins, it was with great anticipation that we entered Harewood Speed Hillclimb on a very pleasant early June morning for the Classic and Vintage meet; an event I had been entirely convinced to attend after thoroughly enjoyable previous experiences of the Vintage Sports Car Club where the relaxed nature and paddock access is second to none!
With a very reasonably priced bacon cob in hand, a steady stroll around the paddock revealed a mammoth 150 car entry list with machinery ranging from Mini to Formula 5000 Cooper and 500cc F3 car to Bentley Continental with a huge contingent of VSCC competitors fitting somewhere in between! The expectation being that all entrants would face 2 morning practice runs up the UK’s longest hillclimb course followed by at least 2 timed runs in the afternoon.
With practice runs passing relatively smoothly, despite the odd delay for break downs (to be expected with cars of this age group) not surprisingly it was machinery from Class 21 for Classic Racing and Sports Racing Cars that set the quickest timed runs with the fabulous Cooper T90 of James Baxter breaking the timing beam in 60.85 seconds to take overall honours! There were some excellent efforts elsewhere however with Jonathan North’s Mini Cooper setting a time of 67.38 to claim class C19 and Joshua Oakes traversing the 1,448 metres in just 62.94 seconds aboard his Reliant Scimitar SS1 to top class 38.
It was the machinery from the Vintage Sports Car Club which had ultimately convinced us to make the relatively short trip up North though and they did not disappoint. The shear effort involved in getting some of the cars up the hill was a sight to behold, with driver weight transfer (sidecar-esc) seemingly the key to manhandle some of the aging machines through the corners.
As it was the Alta 61 of Ian Baxter would set the fastest vintage class time with a ridiculously quick 67.24 (12th fastest overall), not bad for a car registered pre 1941! Michael James meanwhile would take both Class V9 and V14 honours with the 50th and 51st best times of the event in the respective Riley Cotton Special and Riley TT Sprite replica, whilst David Frank was 61st fastest up the climb to top class V10 in the SC/GN Beetle.
There were in fact some 24 class winners on the day which turned out to be a great first experience of hillclimbing from my perspective. And what a venue to choose for a first visit! Not only is Harewood set in very picturesque surroundings but is also fabulously maintained. With just the grass spectator walkways mown and everything else free to grow the whole venue has a National Trust / Nature reserve feel to it! And to top it off the view of the entire course from the Hill Top car park has got to be one of the best in British Motorsport. What a great day out for the very fair sum of just £12.50!
GALLERY
Paul Commons Motorsport 