As many of your know the camping fees collected at Gurston Down’s events are donated the village of Broad Chalke.
We collected £1375 in 2018 and £2015 in 2019. That’s £3390 collected to be donated to village organisations.
The following donations were made: £1500 to Chalke Valley Sports Centre; £1000 to Broad Chalke Village Hall and £340 Chalke Valley Football Club £340. The balance of £550 is yet to be distributed.
It is with great sadness that we have to inform you that Joan Hitchings, aged 88, has died on the 15th August 2020.
All at Gurston Down Speed Hill Climb offer our thoughts and most sincere condolences to her children, Robert, Philip, Janette, Melanie, Barbara and Frances and to her grand-children.
The family memorial service and cremation service are being held today.
These are the dates that BARC SW Centre plan to run events in the 2021 season. The exact decision on whether events are one day or two day meetings has yet to be agreed. Full details, including invited clubs, will be published here as soon as they are available.
Test Day – 7th March – BARC SW Members
March – Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th
April – Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th
May – Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th – expected to be the Motorsport UK British Hillclimb Championship Weekend. There will be an Intercub (formerly Nat B) meeting for BARC SW Centre members at this event.
June – Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th – The Tony Marsh Memorial Weekend
July – Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th
August – Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th
Note: Full details of the invited clubs for each event will be available soon.
There will be at least FOUR school days in 2021:
Tuesday 6th April
Tuesday 4th May
Tuesday 8th June
Tuesday 13th July (FULLY BOOKED)
There may be a school on Tuesday 3rd August – but this has not yet been confirmed
After an exhaustive Committee meeting on the 29th June 2020, BARC South West Centre have to announce that we will not be running an event on 30th August 2020.
As many of you already know, as a consequence, there will be no hill climb events at Gurston Down Speed Hill Climb for the 2020 season. The Turbo Dynamics Gurston Down Hill Climb Championship and the Cavendish Ships Store BARC SW Top Ten Challenge have both been cancelled as has our Annual Awards Dinner in November.
The Committee heard from all of those involved in the running of the event, discussed the safety and financial implications, as well as views from each of the committee members.
The primary concern of the Committee was driver and stakeholder safety. The Committee, by majority vote, decided that the event could not be run taking into account all of the current guidance issued by Motorsport UK, BARC, HM Government and the other stakeholders.
Our Competition Secretary, Nick Revels will be in touch with all competitors over the next few weeks to arrange refunds. These refunds will be processed as quickly as possible.
BARC SW, 1st July 2020
NOTE: This statement was originally due for release on Friday 12th June at 10:00 and has been changed to reflect announcements made during that day.
STATEMENT
BARC South West have decided, after much discussion, that we will not be running the British Hill Climb and BHC Cup event planned for the August bank holiday weekend.
Our final decision was made on Friday morning, prior to the announcement by the British Hill Climb Championship that they have cancelled their 2020 championship.
BARC South West regret to announce that we are cancelling our September club meeting.
However, we are now working towards running just one meeting in 2020. Obviously, subject to the Motorsport UK’s guidelines and any government restrictions in force at the time.
This meeting will take place over the August bank holiday weekend vacated by the BHC event. We believe that this will give us time and enable us to organise the meeting.
The precise format of the meeting in August has yet to be formally decided, although we expect it to be a one day event on Sunday 30th. As you will appreciate, we have a number of issues that will need to be addressed prior to running the meeting. These include safety issues, other logistical issues as well as the financial implications that come about running a motorsport event during these times.
Once we have formulated solutions to these issues, that are both workable and feasible, within the guidelines and time-frame, we will let you know.
More updates as soon as we have them.
BARC South West – Original Statement Date: Friday 12thJune at 10:00 – Edited
With a number of other hills and clubs making announcements about running events in July, August and further in the future, BARC South West would like to update you on our progress in respect of the August and September meetings.
We have been analysing the Motorsport UK’s requirements published last month. Our primary concern with regard to these regulations is safety. That’s not just of our competitors but all the people involved in our events.
We are working on the requirements, as well as reviewing how other clubs are implementing these requirements and how they are organising their meetings.
As many of you know, we have a limited paddock area. The current regulations would only allow us to accommodate approximately 70 cars and no spectators. This makes the August and September meetings financially difficult. We are hoping for changes to be made after the next government announcement at the end of June / early July to enable us to run these meetings as planned.
On top of this, we are unable to run meetings after the second week of September because of our lease of the hill.
In order to reduce our costs, we have withdrawn our online entry system for both of the August and September meetings. At this time we would prefer not to accept entries to avoid additional costs.
Once we have solutions to all of these requirements, as they stand today, to run an event we will allow entries to be taken online again.
More updates as soon as we have them.