Summer Championship Hillclimb

Report by JCB Photography Chris Bannister

30 August 2023

BARC Yorkshire Centre organised the Summer Championship Hillclimb event on Sunday 27^th August as part of the Harewood Championship.

Joining the Harewood regulars, were motorcycle competitors on both two and three wheels, along with competitors for the Longton Northern Speed Championship and the HRCR Moran Motorhomes Speed Challenge, with a small group of different model Triumph car’s from the REV/TR also adding to a packed entry list.

The event got underway at 9:00, with batch one which was the motorbike and sidecar riders, followed by the shared car in class 1B, Production Road cars over 1400cc, up to and including 2000cc  and then the Triumph cars.

Under very cloudy and changeable conditions with even a little bit of sun but the sun did not last, and a couple of showers during the middle part of the morning. Two practice runs followed by a timed run were completed before the lunch break. It was during this timed run that the rain came down, making the track conditions very slippy.

Out of the main championship contenders, Rob Spedding driving his Formula Ford Vector TF93K had the worst of these conditions, for his first timed run.

Another three timed runs were completed during the afternoon but thankfully in much drier conditions. Dissipate the weather and track conditions a number of drivers managed to set new PB’s times (personal best times) with a couple of unlucky drivers managing to go off and damaging the cars too badly to continue.

It is the timed runs which are used for the Championship scores. 2021 and 2022 Harewood Champion Adam Riley driving the Honda S2000, car# 70 of Karl Jackson, car# 770 jumps into the overall lead of the Harewood Championship even though the car had lost a couple of gears during the event.

David Leach driving his Lotus Elise S1, car# 94 drops down to second place while Rob Spedding driving his Formula Ford Vector TF93K, car # 137, who had been leading the Championship for most of the year drops down to third, before dropped scores are taken into account, so it is very tight going into the final two rounds of the 2023 season in September.

Full timing and results for the Summer Championship Hillclimb can be found here: Results Sunday 27 August 2023

Harewood Championship results after the Summer Championship meeting: Championship Results

In the Fastest Time of the Day Championship (FTD), of the top four going into the event, only John Prickett, car# 787  was at the event, again sharing the Westfield SiEW of Derek Leetham car# 87.

David Tatham still leads the FTD Championship by sixteen points but now over Jake Bellerby. Jake driving his dads OMS 2000, car #132 set the FTD. With Paul Gibson driving his OMS3000, car# 131 setting the second FTD and Simon Green driving his Westfield Duratec, car# 121 setting the third FTD.

While the fastest bike was the KTM of Paul Jarrett bike #802 and the fastest sidecar was the husband and wife team of Simon and Jane Foster riding the Honda F2 sidecar outfit # 969.

FTD Championship results

FTD Championship after Summer Championship meeting

The final events of the 2023 Harewood Championship season takes place over the weekend of 16^th and 17^th September, with the Greenwood Cup and Mike Wilson Hillclimb meetings.

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