Harewood Hillclimb Championship

General Details and Spring National Hillclimb event - Part two

Report By Chris Bannister

13 Apr 2022

Just to recap this is part two part one was a little bit of history about the Club and Hillclimbing at Harewood Hill and can be found here.

In 2022 the Yorkshire Centre of the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) will be celebrating its 100^th Anniversary and also, its 60^th Anniversary of Hillclimbing up the famous Harewood Hill.

This report also starts the nine rounds of the Harewood Speed Hillclimb Championship off with the Spring National event which took place on Sunday 10th April 2022 and finishes with a double header, during the weekend of 17th and 18th September with the Greenwood Cup and Mike Wilson Hillclimb events.

The venue will host twelve Hillclimb Motorsport events in 2022. As well as nine rounds of the Harewood Speed Hillclimb Championship, the venue will also host two rounds for the Motorsport UK British Hillclimb Championship in May and July, with a totally separate event for The Vintage Sports Car Club (VSCC) the Classic and Vintage Hillclimb in June.

Harewood Speed Hillclimb course track details

Located between the villages of Harewood and Collingham on the A659.

SatNav postcode LS17 9LA.

The track is 1448 metres long.

The fastest cars can complete the course in under 50 seconds.

With top speeds in excess of 130 mph.

Hillclimb record is 47.81 set by Wallace Menzies driving a Gould GR59 on 07/07/2019.

Ladies Hill record is 53.03 set by Nicola Menzies driving a Gould GR55B on 07/07/2019

BARC Harewood Hillclimb is the longest speed hillclimb in mainland UK. The all tarmac track is set against the beautiful backdrop of the Wharfedale valley in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire.

A normal Harewood Championship event will start at 9:00 with two practice runs and if time allows a timed run before the lunch break followed by at least another two timed runs during the afternoon. It is the timed runs which are used for the Championship scores.

What is a Hillclimb?

The Competitors challenge is to drive the 1448 metre course in the shortest possible time. Using the quickest and smoothest lines through each of the corners. Each driver is not only competing against the clock but also against other drivers in his or her class, each of these cars with have similar performance.

Points are awarded within the class that the competitors car is entered in, based on the improvement against the bogey time. The 2022 bogey times are the current class record at the start of each meeting plus 20 seconds, though a small number of classes are calculated. Championship points are awarded at the rate of 0.01 for each 0.01 second a driver beats the bogey time of the class. With a maximum of 21 points awarded at any one meeting.

With competitors not only competing in the BARC Harewood Speed Championship, drivers are also competing for the Fastest time of the Day Championship and Fastest time in their class.

Fastest time of the day

Points are awarded to the championship competitors who have recorded the ten fastest times of the day in the class runs. Points are awarded from 10 for the fastest competitor, down to 1 point for tenth place. These times will normally be posted by one of the cars from the single seater racing car classes. Although wet weather conditions can occasional throw up some surprises.

Brief break down of the cars and different classes that take part in Speed Hillclimbing

Road going and modified

This will include many different types of road going cars all cars must have tax and MOT with limited modifications to body work and engine, all interior trim must be fitted and glass cannot be replaced with limited tyres from a defined list of road going types.

Modified production cars

The silhouette above the wheel hub centres must remain as standard, apart from the bonnet and boot. The rest of the bodywork can be made from different materials but must retain the original shape. Side and rear windows maybe replaced with lighter plastic replacements.

Modified front and rear spoilers are allowed. Engine must be identifiable as fitted to the original model, though extensive modifications are allowed. Limited Suspension charges and slick racing tyres complete the setup.

Formula Ford

These cars were built for a specific race series, however Harewood regulations are for cars in this class which must have been built before 1994, using the Kent crossflow engines. Engine and suspension changes are very tightly controlled and managed. No aerodynamic wings are allowed and tyres are limited.

Racing Cars

Single seater open wheel race cars with no minimum level of production. Engine choice and modifications are not limited. Aerodynamic devices are also allowed, with tyre choice open to the competitor.

Sports Libre

In this category of cars, the competitor is free to make a wide range of modifications and enter a wide range of cars not covered by the other classes. Tyre choice is also open to the competitor.  This means that any other car, not covered in any of the above classes could be entered into Sports Libre from World Rally cars, Hillclimb or Supersport Specials and GT1 Sports cars.

Each of the classes will be subdivided into engine sizes, other than the Formula Ford’s all of which have the Kent cross-flow 1600cc engines.

Spring National event

A number of other car clubs are also invited throughout the season to include Ferrari’s, Porsche’s and for this event competitors from the following Championships, the MG Car Club Luffield Speed, Nottingham Sports Car Club Speed and Midland Speed Championships.

With some nice early Yorkshire Spring sunshine welcoming competitors for the start of the 2022 season at Harewood Hillclimb, the Spring National event got under way after an overnight frost. Some of the Competitors comments, after the first Practice run was that the track was a little greasy.

The conditions only very slowly improved throughout the morning as we only got though two practice runs before the lunch break, after so many red flags. However in the afternoon track conditions improved and four times runs were completed for most of the drivers.

Next meeting is a double header over the weekend of the 7^th for the Harewood Open Hillclimb Championship. Followed by the fastest cars on the hill during the May British Championship Hillclimb on the 8^th May.

Many thanks to BARC Yorkshire centre for the opportunity to be track side and not forgetting all the Marshals, Medical, Rescue teams including Darlington Motor Club Rescue without which the event could not take part.