Article by Steve Dennis

Mythical or Magical?
Harewood hillclimb, God's own county, August bank holiday, it must be sunny? Well when 19 tvr contestants arrived the hill was still being 'washed', but the rain stopped before practice started. Unfortunately the track was still wet in places and it caught out some people. John Haggas hit the inside of Quarry bend damaging his Griff and John Cucci, who had accepted the offer of a shared drive in a Sagaris with Tony Abrams, because both his Griff and his 3000M were in pieces, had a slight off, but without damage. The times for this run gave no guide as to how the day would turn out.

Second practice brought a dry track and some 'proper' times, figures in brackets are net of algorithm times.

Class A, that Elite band, was led by Steve Dennis in his Vixen, with a 70.67 (64.35) followed by a very tight trio of Howard Bryan in the circuit racer Tasmin 71.64 (66.47), Alan Bankhurst's Vixen 72.13 (66.49) and Geoff Stallard, who was struggling to find any advantage in his B list tyres, 71.56 (66.57)

In Class B the Big Boys were led by Simon Cole's Wedge 65.43 (63.85) just ahead of Paul Edwards' T350 65.81 (65.05) followed by the two Sagaris (Sagari?) of Tony Abrams 68.87 (67.25) and John Simpson 67.50 (67.40)

So after practice the overall field was led by Simon Cole from that white Vixen. Would the Big Boys stamp their authority on the event, indeed as Steve Cox had said before the event 'Is there anyone whose personals are big enough to keep the 25 points out of Mr Cole's hands?'

The first competitive run showed the tensions which were building, The only person to damage their car as opposed to their pride, was Alan Bankhurst who cracked his Vixen's bonnet against the bank at Chippy's. Geoff Stallard outbraked himself into the Esses, Tim Scrivens clattered the clapper posts at Quarry, Simon Cole spun after the line, just missing the timing gear, Paul Edwards reversed over the line after a half spin, and Howard Bryan struggled with a faulty master switch.

The times showed that most people who had kept it on the track went quicker than in practice. John Cucci was obviously getting to grips with the Sagaris, improving by over 5 seconds, and John Carter's improvement in the V8S was over 3 seconds. Both Simon and Steve went quicker, with Steve's 70.03 being a tantalising 2 hundredths off Ian Bannister's class record.

The second timed runs reflected what had happened in the first one. Those who had failed to record a competitive time drove prudently to get a decent time on the board, and those who had already 'banked' a good time drove like Hell! John Pollard's 72.04 (66.00) was a personal best, and Steve Cox kept all his 3 dry runs within 15 hundredths of a second of each other. The A class record fell to the white Vixen, Steve Dennis recording a 69.21 (63.03), whilst Simon fought to get his hands on the 25 points, but his 64.90 (63.33) was not quite enough. That mythical Vixen took another magical 25 points ahead of Simon Cole, Paul Edwards, Howard Bryan and John Pollard.

See you at Cadwell Park in 2 weeks for the next exciting episode!