Gurston Down Championship Rounds 13-16 – 1st and 2nd August
WORDS – John Brown
PICTURES – Matthew Willis and Vince Feeney
Continuing hot and sunny weather and another full entry for the first weekend of August with, in addition, our second visit of the year from the motorcycles of the National Hillclimb Association all made for a challenging weekend which unfortunately came to a premature ending on Sunday evening.
GURSTON DOWN CHAMPIONSHIP
Fortunately all competitors in the Gurston Down Championship completed their second set of timed runs before the curtailment of the meeting and so their scores are included in the Championship standings but Round 7 of the Top Ten Challenge was cancelled and so no points were awarded, meaning that the final results of the Challenge will be decided from the best 6 rounds out of 9 rather than 7 out of 10.
For the first weekend this year no driver was able to equal or get below their Championship class target time indicating perhaps that finding that last few hundredths or tenths was becoming increasingly harder. I have included the current class target against each class below.
A number of withdrawals reduced some of the Championship classes to just one runner and the winners of those classes were as follows:
Class 9-4WD (TT – 33.16) was won by Jim Herbert in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo on Saturday in a time of 34.27 but on his first run on Sunday he coasted down through Hollow Bend and up the escape road and did not appear for his second run and so no scores for him that day.
Class 14 (TT – 33.56) – although Ben Rolls appeared in practice on Saturday he did not take any competitive runs and was a no-show on Sunday leaving Luke Trotman in his Mallock with the class to himself which he won with times of 34.79 (Sat) and 34.64 (Sun).
Class 15a (TT – 32.50) – Tim Pitfield in the DJ Firecat was as usual on his own in this class but his times were down compared to earlier rounds – he won on Saturday with 33.91 and on Sunday with 33.11.
Class 16 (TT – 28.61) – Nic Mann was a late withdrawal owing to a family illness and so the only runner was non-Championship entrant Chris Dunscombe in his Peugeot T16 bodied Mitsubishi Lancer in which his best times were 36.40 (Sat) and 37.32 (Sun)
Chris Dunscombe (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo / Peugeot T16) [photo by Matthew Willis]
Class 20 (TT – 31.19) – no competition for Stephen Snell in his Ralt RT35 this weekend but for the first time since the opening weekend he failed to get below 32 seconds in the class runs after a fraught first run on Saturday (41.82), though he recovered in the Top Ten run-off on Saturday. Best times in the class were 32.49 (Sat) and 32.05 (Sun).
Class 21b (TT – 27.12) – another frustrating weekend for Jason Robinson and his Empire Wraith. A good qualification in 30.83 on Saturday (third best) was followed by a breakage in the car as he approached the finish line which left him in 12th in the run-off while on Sunday he was forced to withdraw after one practice run.
Another solitary entrant was the first one at Gurston in the Junior Class for drivers aged between 14 and 16 in cars up to 110bhp (4-JNR) where Aiden Ingram, on only his second hillclimb event, set a new class record of 49.05 secs in his MG ZR.
Junior driver Aiden Ingram (MG ZR) [photo by Vince Feeney]
And the final class with just the one runner was the Chairman’s Invitation where 4 time Gurston champion Steve Butts was being filmed in his Lotus Elise for an episode of a new TV series called “The Race Mechanic”. Having not been on the hill since 2023 he got down to times of 35.98 on Saturday and 34.88 on Sunday.
Steve Butts (Lotus Elise) [photo by Matthew Willis]
Richard Morton and Chris Burch continued their personal battle in Class 4-MX5 (TT – 39.08) with Richard running first this weekend. Both got below 40 secs on Saturday with Richard winning on 39.26 secs but on his first run on Sunday what seemed like an exuberant entry by him into Karousel saw the car eventually finishing up on its side just beneath the commentary box. Fortunately Richard was OK, the incident caused by a stuck throttle, and the car now has some damage to the driver’s side to match that on the passenger side from earlier incidents!
The final resting place for the Mazda? [photo by Vince Feeney]
John Davey and his MG Midget won again in Class 4a (TT – 39.39) with 40.22 (Sat) and 39.86 (Sun) but regular runner-up David Nutland, now in the 42nd year of running his Mini, was beaten into 3rd place on Sunday by Steve Holley in his Ford Fiesta who was just 6/100ths faster on his first run but 1/100th slower on the second run. Both were however beaten by Steve’s co-driver, Andrew Thorp on the second run though not by enough to elevate him above 4th.
In Class 4b (TT – 37.93) Keith Mizen in his Mazda MX5 made his first appearance on Saturday since the Gurston Masters back in May and after a close battle he was able to win with a time of 38.34 ahead of the duelling Honda Civics of Russell Davies (38.41) and Daniel Friel (38.91). On Sunday, in the absence of Mizen and Friel, Davies reduced his best of the weekend to 38.21, beating the Mazda of Dean Dickens into second and scoring good points against his class target.
Class 4c (TT – 36.95) has not had any Championship entries this year and on Sunday its only entrant withdrew, but on Saturday it was Mark Spencer making his first appearance at Gurston for at least 10 years who won in his Porsche 911 GT3 in a time of 35.02 ahead of regular entrant Jon Young in his MGZS and Stephen Lloyd’s Audi A5.
Mark Spencer (Porsche 911 GT3) [photo by Vince Feeney]
Class 4d (TT – 33.02) featured a Caterham and a couple of Westfields, a Sylva Striker and a Fisher Fury but in the only major incident on Saturday, Dan Trotman ran straight into the barriers at Ashes and rendered his Westfield hors de combat for the rest of the weekend. The only Gurston Championship entrant, Rob Brodie in his Honda engined Fury took a couple of straightforward wins in 36.24 (Sat) and 35.70 (Sun).
There were no championship runners in Class 4-4WD (TT – 32.78) on Saturday though Steve Cox joined in on Sunday. A welcome visitor to this class was 5 time Scottish Road Car Champion, David Reid in his Team Flying Haggis Subaru Impreza who improved to 36.19 by the end of Sunday but he was no match for the more modified Impreza of Dan Stevens who won with times of 34.35 (Sat) and 34.02 (Sun).
David Reid (Subaru Impreza) [photo by Vince Feeney]
Onto the modified classes and Graham Beale moved his entry from the Classic Marques Speed Challenge, where he reckoned he had a good chance of a class record, back into his usual Class 6 (TT – 33.06) in the hope of scoring good championship points and he was rewarded with class wins in 33.69 (Sat) and 33.16 (Sun), the latter of which gave him 19.9 championship points for that round, equal best (with Karl Stevens) of all entrants over the weekend.
Class 7 (TT – 35.31) was a 2 car contest between Steve Luscombe’s MG Midget and David Bean’s Mini and although Bean was quickest on the first Saturday run with a 42.46 it was advantage Luscombe overall on Saturday (42.17) and Sunday (41.46).
In Class 8 (TT – 35.68) Karl Stevens has been resetting targets every day until this weekend but with runs of 35.78 and 35.83 on Saturday he was still highest overall scorer and with Tim Pitfield having a problem on his first run he extended his Championship lead. Richard Worth in his Ford Puma was second in spite of a double spin along the field between Hollow and Karousel. On Sunday, in contrast, Karl had his worst two runs of the season when measured against the relevant target and he will be dropping those scores, but he still beat Worth with a better time of 36.21.
No championship contenders in Class 11 (TT – 31.56) and it was 2 wins for Adrian Lewis in his Westfield Superbusa (entered in a different Championship class) with 32.92 (Sat) and 32.42 (Sun) over John Bradshaw in his Westfield.
Class 13 (TT – 34.25) for historically interesting cars has been less populated than usual this year but it was the 2 regulars Fyrth Crosse and Mike Broome who fought it out with Fyrth winning in his Ensign on both days with 34.86 and 34.89 and his consistency against the class target across all 4 runs has seen him steadily climbing the table.
Fyrth Crosse (Ensign LNF3) [photo by Matthew Willis]
Peter Steel and Paul Davies continued their rivalry in their Radicals in Class 15b (TT – 31.01) and it was Peter who was quicker all weekend with runs consistently below 32 seconds, winning on Saturday with a best time of 31.81 and on Sunday it was 31.59.
Brothers Euan and Calum Kemp have been close all year in Class 18 (TT – 31.52) and it was no different this weekend. On Saturday they had Reg Allen in his Jedi to keep them honest and at the end of the day the three were separated by just 1/10th with Euan leading the way on 36.55. With no Allen on Sunday Euan again won (35.74) but only after Calum had led him first time up.
Class 19 (TT – 29.85) saw Lucy Cuff running alongside her father in the ex-James Moore Empire for the first time with James on hand as a spectator. On Saturday the Empire had a ruptured radiator after practice and so only David got a run in the afternoon but that 31.77 meant he finished 4th overall behind the usual top 3 with Tom Williams taking his first class win of the year with a 30.98 ahead of Ben Bonfield and Mark Crookall who were both unusually unable to get below 31 seconds.
And maybe it was that which led to the amazing sight on Sunday of, first of all, Ben deciding that maybe he was not going to make Karousel and instead running up the escape road and then of Mark spinning in the middle of Karousel, ironically ending up almost exactly where his previously owned Mazda had been on its side earlier in the day! Tom Williams had gone up in 30.99, but the leader after this first run was none other than David Cuff on 30.86. Although David then had a poor time on the second run, none of the other 3 were able to oust him from the top, with the best time of the second run only being Mark Crookall’s 31.01.
David Cuff (Empire 00) [photo by Matthew Willis]
Steve Holland continued his dominance in Class 21a (TT – 27.99) winning on both days in 28.10 (Sat) and 28.14 (Sun) with Nigel Pitt in second though Nigel’s second run on Sunday came to an early halt when he coasted down through Hollow which begs the question of whether he would have been able to take his place in the Top Ten run-off if it had happened.
Of great interest in this class was the presence of three classic Pilbeams: the familiar ex-Blankstone MP62KV6 (MP62-05) of Andrew Dinner; the ex Bill Morris MP88 – 06 of Jonathan Evans and Kevin Creaven, which unfortunately had a seized gearbox on Sunday, and most excitingly of all (at least to a Pilbeam nut like myself) the ex Roy Lane MP58 – 01 now owned and driven by Keith Rapsey and running a 2-litre Vauxhall engine. This was the first of 3 MP58s owned by Roy Lane when it was powered by a Cosworth DFL engine. It then passed to George Ritchie in Scotland who installed a Hart and then a Judd EV and its next owner was Deryk Young who attached the back end of the car to a Dallara tub to form the Dellara with which he took his only BHC run-off win at Shelsley. The last owner before Rapsey was Paul Crute who ran it with the Jaguar engine which is now in his OMS.
Keith Rapsey (Pilbeam MP58-01) [photo by Vince Feeney]
Paul Crute was out in Class 22 (TT – 28.56) and finished second on both days to Terry Graves in his Gould DJ55 – Cosworth XD who won with times of 29.85 (Sat) and 29.32 (Sun).
With 16 rounds now having been run in the Gurston Championships we can start to look at the Championship positions based on each driver’s best 14 results. This does not include the further complication which is that the best 2 of the 4 rounds (3,4,19,20) will count double in the final!
Top 14 scores (no doubling included):
Karl Stevens 279.57
Tim Pitfield 278.13
Steve Holland 276.15
Stephen Snell 273.52
John Davey 271.00
Russell Davies 270.68
PRE-94 FORMULA FORD CHALLENGE
We have no championship entrants this year in Class 20a (TT – 36.62) for pre-1994 Formula Ford cars but as has been the case for a number of years we had the pre-1994 FF Challenge visiting us at the weekend for 4 rounds of their competition. This encompasses 3 weekends – a hillclimb at Loton Park in July, this weekend at Gurston and a sprint at Curborough in October. A total of 21 drivers took to the hill in cars varying from one of the very first Formula Ford cars produced back in 1967, a Lotus 51a, through other early models in a Merlyn Mk11A, a Pringett Mistrale and a Nike Mk4 and a wide range of Van Diemens to the newest car, Stuart Lugger’s Swift SC93F.
Winner of the first 4 rounds, Jimmy Harris was not present which opened the door for others to score well. Favourite was 3 times BHC winner Trevor Willis in Richard Summers’ Van Diemen RF80 and so it proved with Trevor taking three wins in times of 36.47, 36.09 and 36.25 but the 2nd round on Saturday was won by local driver Stuart Lugger in 36.62. Across the weekend Trevor scored the most Challenge points with 398.55 (out of a possible 400), with Stuart Lugger second highest scorer on 394.60 and Simon Andrews third in his Van Diemen RF90 on 389.54. Andrew Mathis would have been well up there as he had been second in all of the first 3 runs but on Sunday’s last round he took a wee trip across the grass between Hollow and Karousel and lost 13 secs, eventually finishing with the 13th highest score of the weekend. Another notable performance by a Gurston regular was Rebecca Crocombe’s 6th highest points scoring position.
Trevor Willis (Van Diemen RF80) [photo by Matthew Willis]
A couple of the Fordsters found Karousel a tricky proposition: Tony Kiss turned in too early at the bottom and lost his nose cone against the grass as he spun to a halt while Les Buck failed to turn in at all at the top and proceeded a fair way up the field before rejoining at Deers Leap!
GUEST CLASSES
We also had a number of visiting Championship classes and the biggest was the Classic Marques Speed Challenge. Unfortunately they were not able to have their second run on Sunday. Fastest in class on Saturday was Dean Spurr in his Porsche Cayman GTS in a time of 36.59 from Jim Hood in his turbocharged Mazda MX5 on 36.97 but on Sunday it was Hood who was fastest on their only run with a 36.62 to Spurr’s 36.95. Two very different but closely matched cars but as the Challenge uses a complex handicap system it is possible that neither won the class on handicap.
Dean Spurr (Porsche Cayman) [photo by Vince Feeney]
Dan Young won the Isle of Wight Car Club class in his unusual Westfield which is fitted with a turbocharged Mazda rotary engine. His 35.21 on Saturday and 34.79 on Sunday were well ahead of his class rivals.
Dan Young (Westfield Mazda) [photo by Vince Feeney]
The Sevenoaks and District Motor Club Speed Championship class saw the only existing class record to be broken all weekend when Alex Peters in his Jaguar V8R took 1/100th of a second off the old record with a 37.28 run to win the class on Saturday. He couldn’t find the same speed on Sunday and was beaten by Dave Rayner in his Caterham Supersport who had a best time of 38.68.
Alex Peters (Jaguar V8R) [photo by Vince Feeney]
A variety of cars in a number of sub-classes contested the Triple M Motorsport HSA Speed Championship class the quickest time on both days going to Richard Burnett in his Westfield (the current Downton MC class record holder) in 33.82 (Sat) and 33.72 (Sun) both times below the HSA sub-class record. Another HSA sub-class record was broken by Julian Rinaldi in his Ford Fiesta.
Father and son Chris and Matt Bramall were the only entrants in the BARC Speed Championship class on Saturday with son Matt winning in their shared Caterham in a time of 36.06. They were joined by Paul Wintle in a Toyota Yaris on Sunday but the result was the same with Matt winning in 36.25.
Finally a mixed field of Big Austin Healeys, Jensen Healeys and Austin Healey Sprites contested the Healeysport Speed Championship. Paul Baker in his Sprite overturned a 2/100th deficit to Michael Berry in his 100M to win on Saturday in 38.71 with Berry in second and David Lane’s Jensen in third. On Sunday, in the absence of Berry, Brett Dillon (38.60) and Baker finished first and second in their Sprites with Lane again third. Ian Thomas in his classic rallying 3000 MkII replica was the best of the big Healeys in 5th.
TOP TEN CHALLENGE
Only one round of the Top Ten Challenge was held and this was won convincingly by Steve Holland with a time of 28.35. Completing the top 3 were Nigel Pitt (30.23) and Ben Bonfield (30.98). The rest of the runners finished in the order Tom Williams, Mark Crookall, Steve Snell, David Cuff, Paul Crute, Peter Steel, Paul Davies, Dylan Ferrett and Jason Robinson.
With the round on Sunday being cancelled and no longer counting for the Championship and with only 6 rounds now to count Steve Holland is the challenge winner-elect having won 6 of the 7 rounds held, one of them being a double points scoring round and so with a maximum total of 70 points he cannot mathematically be caught. When officially confirmed this will be Steve’s second Challenge win having also won in 2023 in his Caterham, the only non racing car winner.
MOTORCYCLES
Solo motorcycles were divided into 5 classes on Saturday with individual entries in the up to 250cc, won by Patrick Evans on his KTM (37.30) and in the 251-350cc, won by Paul Machon on a glorious Aermacchi Ala D’Oro in 38.75.
Paul Machon (Aermacchi) [photo by Matthew Willis]
The biggest entry was in the 351-500cc class. Cameron Williams on his Aprilia led for a while in the first run until Callum Short, running second last, came through on his KTM to take the lead which he improved upon on the second run to win with 34.83.
The small field of 501 – 750cc bikes (3 KTMs and 1 Suzuki) contained the fastest bike overall on the first run when Callum Short recorded 34.26 which was not bettered in the class on the second run. Marcus Bisson was second on 34.45.
In the 751-1400cc class Paul Jeffrey took the lead on the first run, slightly slower than Short, on 34.42 but on the second run he reduced that to 34.11 to end the day fastest overall with David Peat second in class on 34.84.
Two contrasting Sidecar outfits completed the field – the familiar Windle – Kawasaki of Kevin and Sara Dewell were by far the quicker on 42.04, but their only rival was a 1950s 750cc Triumph Twin outfit ridden by Peter and Claire Thomas. This was Peter’s first time riding the bike and they recorded 2 identical times of 52.01.
Peter and Claire Thomas (Triumph 750 twin) [photo by Matthew Willis]
Onto the Sunday, and beginning with the Sidecars this time, and amazingly the Thomas outfit once again recorded two identical times – but a good bit quicker at 48.35, still a bit behind the Jewells on 40.01.
There were only 4 solo classes on the Sunday as Paul Machon had moved from his 350 Aermacchi to an equally classis 500cc Seeley G50.
Patrick Evans reduced his time in the 250cc class to 37.14 while Cameron Williams turned the tables on Callum Short to win the 500cc class with a 34.43 to Short’s 34.61.
The 750cc class was bolstered by the addition of Tom Short, Tommy Hodges and George Hodges, all on KTMs and it was these 3 who finished in the top 3 positions with Short on 32.87, Tommy Hodges on 33.03 and George Hodges on 33.25. Callum Short, the winner on Saturday was 4th taking nearly a second off his Saturday time with 33.35.
Tom Short (KTM SMR) [photo by Matthew Willis]
In the 1400cc class Paul Jeffery repeated his winning Saturday time of 34.11 on his first run on Sunday but then improved to 33.82 on the second run with David Peat second again on 34.43.
A Top Ten run-off for the bikes was programmed on Sunday but it too was a casualty of the early stoppage of the meeting.