Web Design

ANOTHER EVEN STEVENS....BUT NOW JUST 4 ROUNDS LEFT
IT’S GOING TO BE A CLOSE ONE!

At Gurston Down a new record was set by Adam Fleetwood who won the first run off, but then Graeme Wight Jnr fought back with a brilliant afternoon run off win – but only just by 1/100th of a second. With rounds getting short in number, it may be that Wight Jnr just does not have enough rounds left to overhaul the rookie Fleetwood through the Prescott and Doune weekends.

However, will Doune be the domain of the Scot leaving Fleetwood to blitz at Prescott? The flip to that is that Wight Jnr stuffed his car at Doune in June whilst Fleetwood spun out in one of the run offs. 10 points each it was then. But at Prescott on May 4th, Fleetwood only practiced the car as father Roger went off on his morning class run on the Sunday leaving Wight Jnr to the 2 wins including a record on the very last run.

The showdown can be viewed as follows. If the pair of them get to the top of Prescott and Doune then Adam has the upper hand by virtue of leading at the moment anyway. If Wight Jnr wins the remaining rounds it is pretty sure and likely that Adam will be second all other things being equal. What Jnr needs is people between he and Fleetwood...and that’s unlikely...especially as some drivers won’t go to Doune as their positions are as good as set in stone lower down.

Mechanical failure can never be far away as the Fleetwood Gould found out on Saturday when the clutch completely exploded into a million pieces leaving a trip back to Newbury and a long long night for Sean Gould and gang to repair it. Adam used Roy Lan’s car to practice in.

Anyway.... Gurston took place in fine weather even though it was a little wet in the morning before the first class runs. It brightened up for the bulk of the day with then just a couple of small spots falling after the afternoon run off. Ben Butterfield blitzed the 2 litre record pretty well every time he went up the hill to leave it eventually at 28.42 even after a 28.37 on Saturday.

Tim Mason did very well in the afternoon to be so close to the top two. 0.23 seconds off a GR55 in a GR37 is impressive. About £45k might be the difference too! Tim still could be a spoiler at Doune....

Paul Ranson did well in the first runoff to get 7th and then a 9th whilst Martin Groves got another couple of 4ths to climb up the championship standings to be 7th but could be 5th again by the end. He’ll go very well at Doune and surprise a few people..... Roy Lane is in 5th at the moment after two 5ths at Gurston – who say’s he’s past it! Well done Roy to acclimatise so well so quickly. Mike Dean just lost out on repeating 6th from the morning run off when he got an 8th in the afternoon, but is bagging good points for the championship. Rob Turnbull took that 6th in the afternoon with Willem Toet not far off.

Roger Moran’s V6 Pilbeam just ran out of puff to get him a 9th in the morning, but poor Simon Durling didn’t score a point at all. 4th last year and – not so much struggling – but showing that in order to qualify you really do have to go very fast indeed with SO many cars in the big classes.

Mark Budgett flew but was not quick enough to keep back Rob Barksfield’s little Saxon – an immaculately finished machine.

Rumour mill : With more and more Goulds appearing in the big class – what chance another manufacturer appearing to try and topple them? Watch this space...

Next round is on September 7th at Prescott.
www.prescott-hillclimb.com