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We were privileged to be at historic Shelsley Walsh to see history made as the hill reopened for the first time post-Foot and Mouth
Some motor racing challenges seem to have been with us for ever - we're talking about winning le Mans, coming 1st at Monaco, taking a gold on the MCC Lands End or breaking the hill record at Shelsley Walsh. And if these dreams are beyond the reach of most of us, then being there to see the job done must come a good second best!
On the same weekend our New Millennium Bentley Boys returned to stamp the Bentley name in the le Mans record books, a Scotsman called Graeme Wight demolished a near decade-old record at that mecca of British Hill climbing, Shelsley Walsh. And for those present, the post-event atmosphere seemed every bit as good as in the Bentley Pits at le Sarthe...
The previous hill record, set some 9 years ago by Richard Brown, fell from an already incredible 25.34 to 25.28 seconds. Point oh-six of a second doesn't seem much but in the highly specialised world of UK hill climbing it's aeons. When you realise that he took six hundredths of a second out of the record over a distance of just 1000 yards it seems all the more incredible. On average, in six hundredths of a second he would travel 1.37 yards!
So what device did Wight Jnr have at his disposal to scale the heights so effectively? His V6-engined Gould GR51 debuted last year when it was fresh from the workshops of hillclimb expert David Gould. The last 3 Hillclimb Championships have fallen to Gould-designed chassis with David Grace taking the 2000 title in a F1 V8-engined GR37. Although ex-Formula 1 V8 engines have been the powerplant of choice for hillclimb frontrunners for some time the GR51 bucks this trend by using an ex-German Touring Car Championship Opel V6
The V6 is a higher-revving, peakier motor which develops less power than the DFR/DFV V8s (480 versus 600-odd BHP) but is considerably lighter, lower and set further forward in the car resulting in superior weight distribution to the older Pilbeams and Goulds. The chassis is lighter through more use of carbon fibre and has better aerodynamics than it's predecessor with a high nose and dropped front wing that pays homage to current F1 practice. In these respects the new Gould has certainly ruffled the feathers of modern hillclimbing. Despite breaking new ground design-wise, most of the development work over the winter has been to refine the package, making it more driveable and removing some of the peakiness which caused more than one unscheduled rotation last season!
Hill climbing had a 'nothing much changes' reputation a few years back when it seemed that the same names and cars had been winning for the last 30 years. But the truth is that this highly specialised motor sport is attracting a new, younger, more technically aware audience. They're drawn by the friendly, accessible atmosphere of hillclimb meetings, and perhaps by the fact that the meetings are set in beautiful countryside rather than a giant building site. There's nowhere else you can see massively powerful racing cars, with a supporting cast from Caterhams to Classics, competing in the same challenge. And it's a challenge, in the case of Shelsley, that has stood virtually unchanged for 96 years!
For the Midland Automobile Club who run Shelsley Walsh a new hill record in their Centenary year will go some way to making up for the events lost to the Foot and Mouth crisis. Graeme Wight Jnr leads a new generation of competitors and cars and now heads the Tran-X British Hillclimb Championship. But the young man from By Banchory, North of the Border, has not finished his charge just yet - there is more to come and no hill record can be considered safe!
The photo gallery for Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb is here
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