Unfortunately due to an error, last year’s Summer report was published in the 2022 BARC Racing Club magazine.
The article should read:
Our 2022 season at Gurston Down Speed Hill Climb got underway early this year with our first two meetings in March and the next two in April. Both meetings were blessed with some lovely weather and some great performances.
The Gurston Down Speed Hill Climb Championship is again kindly sponsored by Turbo Dynamics and the BARC South West Top Ten Challenge sees the return of Cavendish Ships Stores as its headline sponsor. We would like to thank them both for their continued support in 2022.
We would also like to thank Ben Harrison Automotive and Thinkwraps for their overwhelming generosity in providing us with a new van too.
The first weekend’s meetings of the year in March saw some interesting performances as well as some great driving. Stephen Wareham in his rapid Mini had a great March weekend. Not only beating the target time on every competition run but reducing the class record too. We also saw some great performances from Clive Stangle in the Mitsubishi Evo and Murry Wakeham in his OMS and Ben Bonfield in his Jedi Mk4. The Cavendish Ships Stores Top Ten Challenge was won on both days by Andrew Forsyth will two great performances.
In April, Clive Stangle’s performance lead to a maximum 44-point weekend, pushing him into the lead in the Turbo Dynamics Championship. Ben Bonfield, Tony Wiltshire and Chris Burch are the next three in the overall championship. Tony Wiltshire now leads the Top Ten Challenge from Ben Bonfield.
The 2022 season looks like it’s going to be an interesting one. With six more events and twelve rounds to go, this year could go right down to the wire and the August meetings. We suspect that drop scores will play a very important role in the 2022 championship in both the classes and overall.
The British Hill Climb Championship presented by Avon Tyres and the British Hill Climb Cup presented by Footman James came to the hill in May, just after the time of writing this report. More on that in a later report. Can Wallace Menzies, the current champion and championship leader increase his lead after a record-breaking weekend at Harewood?
The Gurston Down Drivers School has had another busy year. Thank you to Chris Cannell, Simon Purcell and the rest of the team for making these days so enjoyable. If you would like to try Hill Climbing at Gurston Down, there are a couple of dates in June and August, check the website for full details.
If you’d like to keep up to date with Gurston Down’s news, please visit our website www.gurstondown.org or follow us on Facebook.