Words by John Brown
Pictures by Matt Willis and Vince Feeney
It was another busy and successful year at Gurston Down with 6 weekend meetings held between the beginning of May and the end of August, 5 of them for the Gurston Down Championship and Top Ten Challenge, and the May Bank Holiday one for the British Hillclimb Championship and British Hillclimb Cup. For our last 3 weekends in July and August we ran with maximum fields and some entries had to be put on reserve lists.
We were lucky with the weather this year with just the latter part of the very first Saturday and the first timed runs of the last Saturday being rain affected, while scorching weather in July and August tested the stamina of everyone.
There were 4 rounds of the Turbo Dynamics Gurston Down Championship at each of the non-National weekends making a grand total of 20 from which a driver’s best 14 scores counted towards their final total. In addition, however, a driver’s best 2 scores from rounds 3, 4, 19 and 20 were doubled.
Drivers scored points against a target time for their class, this target being the best time set by a GD Championship contender in the 2 previous years, or longer ago if there had been no times recorded. If a driver equalled their target then they scored 20 points, if they beat their target then the amount they beat it by was added to their score, and the reverse if they were short of their target. When a target was beaten then that time became the target for the next round which could of course be on the same day.
The first 2 weekends of the year quickly showed who the potential champions might be as in the first 8 rounds both Karl Stevens in his 2.0 Ford Escort Mk2 and former champion Tim Pitfield in his 1.3 DJ Firecat sports car broke their class target 5 times scoring high points every time. Others who were quick off the mark were the drivers in the new for 2026 Classic Clubmans class – Luke Trotman, Charles Jones and Ben Rolls who between them set 6 new targets.
Karl and Tim had very little opposition in their classes to keep them honest this year but they both beat their class targets once more in July before both August meetings proved a step too far for everybody and no new targets were set at all during those 8 rounds. Both Karl and Tim had also scored well in the double points rounds 3 and 4 and so the chase was on from the rest of the 51 registered competitors.
Karl Stevens Ford Escort Photo Matt Willis
Other drivers to break their class targets multiple times were Stephen Snell (1.6 Ralt RT35) – 4 times, Steve Holland (1.7 Force TA), Ben Rolls (Mallock) and Jim Herbert (Mitsubishi Evo) – all twice.
In the end it was Karl Stevens who was crowned champion on 320.13 points from Tim Pitfield (318.23), Steve Holland (315.59) and Stephen Snell (312.51).
A large number of the classes had one dominant competitor who was a regular winner but I want to highlight 3 classes where the excitement was maintained through to the later rounds, none more so than the class for Racing Cars between 601 and 1100cc where Ben Bonfield in his Jedi and Mark Crookall in his OMS were inseparable at times. In fact after 4 of the 5 weekends their best 14 scores (before doubling) were exactly equal which means that their total elapsed times for those 14 runs was the same, as the target never changed. They had each taken a total of 434.80 secs for those 14 runs – an average of 31.03 secs per run. Their best times were 30.64 (Mark) and 30.79 (Ben) and their worst was 31.49 (Mark) and 31.43 (Ben). In the end Mark had a suspension breakage after an off on the last day and this allowed Ben to sneak ahead and win the class by just 0.44 points! Not only that, as will be seen later, they scored exactly the same number of points in the Top Ten Challenge. So this certainly goes down as the rivalry of the year.
Another class where you never knew who was going to win was the up to 600cc racing car class where brothers Euan and Calum Kemp swapped wins nearly every round in their OMS Hornet . By the end of the year Calum had beaten Euan on 10 occasions and the reverse was true on 8 occasions but in the end it was Euan who won the class prize at the end of the season by 2.82 points.
Then in the class for Sports Libre cars between 1401 and 2000cc it was a Radical battle between Paul Davies in the ex-Clive Wooster SR4 and Peter Steel in his SR1. Paul took an early advantage as Peter was not present for the first weekend of 4 rounds. After that it was Paul who had the upper hand for the next 3 rounds before Peter gradually eked out a gap with 9 out of 10 wins, but the difference between first and second was as close as 3/100ths. Eventually Peter won the class by 4.8 points.
In total 48 of the 51 registered entrants scored points and congratulations to all the class winners – Richard Morton, John Davey, Russell Davies, Clive Skipper, Steve Cox, Graham Beale, David Bean, Karl Stevens, Jim Herbert, Robert Pallett, Fyrth Crosse, Luke Trotman, Tim Pitfield, Peter Steel, Nic Mann, Euan Kemp, Ben Bonfield, Stephen Snell, Steve Holland, Jason Robinson and Paul Crute.
Steve Holland first drove his Force TA at Gurston in 2025 and by the end of that year he was down to 28.63 secs and he came into 2026 with a target before him of Trevor Willis’ long standing class record of 28.05, set back in 2005. There were 4 major class records broken at Gurston this year but this one was extra special as in July Steve finally broke the 21 year old record with a run in 27.99 secs. Other record breakers were Jack Ellis in his Subaru, Graham Beale in his Ginetta (breaking Gurston chairman Simon Purcell’s class record from 2016) and Sam Wilson who broke the Formula Ford record at the National meeting.
Steve Holland Force TA Photo Vince Feeney
The Formula Ford pre-94 Challenge visited us again in August with 21 runners, this being the second of 3 weekends for the challenge – one at Loton in July and a sprint at Curborough being the other 2. In the absence of dominant Loton winner Jimmy Harris the 4 rounds were shared between Trevor Willis (3 wins) and local man Stuart Lugger (1 win) while Stuart also left Gurston leading the challenge though I am sure Jimmy Harris will be back at Curborough to set the standard again.
Trevor Willis Van Diemen RF80 photo Matt Willis
It is always good to have a wide variety of clubs and championships visiting us every year and especially those who have returned year after year, and this year we also had the Paul Matty Lotus Championship back with us after about 15 years and they provided a large field of 19 road and race Lotus models. However, the biggest class of the year, as it has been for many, was the Classic Marques Speed Challenge who came with 26 runners ranging from Porsches and BMWs through Lotus, Marcos, TVR, Reliant, Alfa Romeo, Mazda, Toyota etc.. But we must not ignore the 21 Porsches nor the 18 Caterhams nor indeed the local Downton Motor Club who were with us on 4 separate occasions. There were a number of records broken among our visiting clubs and championships and congratulations to all who achieved that – Simon Neill, Andrew Webber, Anthony Wallen, Alex Ward (twice), Rob Thomson and Alex Peters. Many thanks to you all for attending Gurston Down – we must be doing something right!!
After all the Gurston class runs and the visiting classes had had their 2 competitive runs each day there was always the Online Cleaning Technologies Top Ten Challenge run-off for the fastest 12 registered Gurston Down competitors. Last year’s winner Terry Graves was not registered this year but when he appeared he would have qualified for the run-offs but he would have found it hard to keep up with Steve Holland. Only 9 of the 10 run-offs took place this year and Steve won 8 of them. The other one was won by Nic Mann when Steve inexplicably left the line on the red light on a re-run!
So Steve won the Challenge for the second time (the last being in 2023 in his Caterham – the only time the Challenge has not been won by a single-seater) with a maximum score of 70 and he was followed in second place by Nigel Pitt in his Dallara who scored 5 second places to take second overall with 62 points ahead of the battling duo of Ben Bonfield and Mark Crookall who finished exactly equal on 55 points but Ben took third after the tie-breaker was applied. Fifth was Tom Williams in his MWR Storm and then Stephen Snell was in 6th.
Nigel Pitt Dallara F305 – Photo Matt Willis
Away from the local championships the British Hillclimb Championship and BHC Cup visited us on May Bank Holiday weekend when they ran to a new format of practice and one competitive class run and one run off on each day. The weekend was marred this year by a spectacular accident for Australian visitor Dean Tighe in his Empire Wraith who rolled just before / at / after the finish line and this caused a lengthy delay in proceedings on the Sunday afternoon. Dean did however return from the hospital before the end of the meeting and amazingly his car competed again at Doune just 4 weeks later.
The run-offs were both won by Matt Ryder in his Gould followed by Will Hall, Wallace Menzies, Paul Haimes and Alex Coles each day.
Matt Ryder Gould GR59 photo Vince Feeney
In a new initiative Inter Club licence holders at the National weekend across all classes were put into one class called the Gurston Masters on each day and points were scored against the respective class targets in play at the time. The winner on the Saturday was Tim Pitfield in his DJ Firecat and, in spite of having an extra 0.25 secs penalty added to his time, he won it on Sunday too!
Tim Pitfield DJ Firecat photo Matt Willis
And we mustn’t forget our friends from the ACU who joined us in May and August with their range of solo machines and sidecars.
So another year has passed and Gurston Down looks forward to its 60th anniversary next year, the first official meeting having been held on 23rd July 1967 after a ‘practice’ meeting in June. Fastest time was set at that meeting by Tony Marsh in his Marsh Special in 35.50 secs – 60 years later the record is 25.00 secs – will we see a 24 second run in our diamond jubilee year?
With many thanks to everyone who made the weekends at Gurston such a success and particularly to the marshals, led by Dave Patrick, who seemed to have had all 4 seasons to cope with this year and the organising committee led by Simon Purcell.