Always open to ticking another motorsport venue off the list the opportunity came up to make a maiden visit to Prescott Hill Climb in Gloucestershire for day 1 of the Prescott Historique meeting.
Thick grey clouds and occasional drizzle made photography challenging but there were some beautifully turned out cars on display from, amongst others, the Paul Matty Lotus Championship, the Healeysport Speed Championship, TR and Clubmans (60th anniversary) registers and the 500 Owners Association.
Slippery conditions following heavy overnight rain made the morning practice runs tricky but some pretty impressive times were achieved as the action turned competitive. Indeed fastest time on the day belonged to David Hampton aboard his Lotus 69 with a 44.55 closely followed by George Brown’s Mallock MK17, registering a 44.90.
Other notable times came from the Lotus Elan S3 of Iain Stallard (47.30), Mark Linforth’s Ford Escort Mk1 (49.71) and the Austin Mini of Matt Clarke (50.67); the latter incredible to watch as the extremely well driven machine appeared to be either sideways or on three wheels for most of the run!
Demo runs from a Pontiac NASCAR and McLaren M10B formula 5000 machine (I’m not sure my ears have fully recovered from the burnouts yet) in addition to competitive runs from Derek Drinkwater’s Cadillac ‘Le Monstre’ recreation and Mark Davies’ Chaparral 1 made for an enjoyable day but perhaps the major highlight was the appearance of the Lancaster Bomber, the crowd reaction to the three incredibly low passes of Prescott Hill Climb said it all!
GALLERY
Paul Commons Motorsport 