Harewood Hillclimb 2 and 3 July 2011
I spent Friday night at a Lou Reed concert and the rest of the weekend gardening and clearing the loft at my mother’s house, but thankfully we have a guest blogger this week… Mr Alan Mugglestone. If anyone has a photo or two, send them in and I’ll add them to Alan’s words. (email – bobjacqs[at]yahoo.com). Congratulations to Nick – I feel the heat now as I see Nick and Tony getting ever closer to me in the championship. What we need now is some rain 
As our usual MX5 reporter (Bob) was missing from Harewood, here’s the bare details of two days of great competition up in Yorkshire!
Paul Webster was flying in class C2 getting down to 67.66
For my part, I finally managed to beat the A2 record for the first time this year, eclipsing Steve’s 4 year old Elise record of 69.68 with a 69.60 on my first timed run and then had fun throwing the little MX5 around to finally stop the clock at 69.18 including being on the grass after the finish line twice!
In the MX5 real class (A2.1) Phil Boyer managed a 79.12 in his first HSA outing this year, Michael Tindale ended up on a 77.37 and Ken Morris continues to improve with each outing, posting a 76.21 to finish 3rd in class today.
The battle for top spot was intense through both practice and timed runs between Nick and Tony. Nick ended up fastest on the Saturday by around 4 tenths but couldn’t match Tony through practice and the first timed run on Sunday, with Tony just under the record with 72.22 and Nick just over on 72.31. On to the last run, with Nick running 4 cars ahead of Tony, and just as he did at Wiscombe, Nick blitzed the run to stop the clock at 71.29. Tony, having heard Nick’s time, gave it his all, clattering over the kerbs under braking in an attempt to find those few tenths, ultimately though just a little too untidy to improve on his best from the first timed run. Great competition in the MX5 class once again!
We had fantastic weather, a mega slick operation from the BARC and for me, the most technical venue we have been to so far; very rewarding when you finally get it something near right!
And thanks to Peter Hubbard for some photos…
Peter Hubbard
