Wiscombe Park - Wildlife Autosport Hillclimb

National Hill Climb Championship – Round 7

Wiscombe Park hosted the Wildlife Autosport Hillclimb on Sunday 19th May 2019 which is organised by the Burnham-On-Sea Motor Club. This year marked the 40th anniversary of the event. It was originally held at the Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park, hence its name. However, when that venue ceased, Wiscombe subsequently hosted the event.

The 1000yards (914 metres) course celebrated its 60th anniversary last year and is considered as one of the best hillclimb courses in the UK. The hill record is shared by Trevor Wills – current National Hillclimb Champion – and Will Hall at 33.79 set in 2014.

The NHCA is the dedicated Championship for bikes, side car’s and trikes. Wiscombe was Round 7 of a 19 round Championship. The bikes are split into 5 classes – 250cc / 350cc / 500cc / 750cc / 1300cc and separate classes for the side cars and trikes. There was a good entry of 6 side cars / trikes and 33 bikes.

There was also a large entry of cars competing in the Association of South West Motor Clubs Hillclimb Championship and Henney’s Cider Classic Speed Championship.

The weather at Wiscombe in the morning was overcast and dry and conditions were good for the two practice runs in the morning. The conditions held for the first timed runs, and a good battle was developing in the single seaters for outright fastest time of the day. Conditions were starting to change though into the afternoon as most of the drivers / riders were unable to better their first timed runs due to the temperature dropping. Not long after the third timed runs started, the first drops of rain arrived, which very rapidly became steady heavy rain. For those that know Wiscombe – it is glorious in the dry, but becomes very treacherous in the wet.

The cars, most running on slicks, sensibly decided to abort their third runs, however the bikers completed their runs including a top ten Run Off in the deluge, albeit at much reduced speeds.

Two wheel honours in the National Hill Climb Association Championship went to Tom Short, 41.71s from Tommy Hodges, 42.54s – both riders on KTM SMR’s.

In the Championship, Tommy Hodges (2018 500cc Champion) - 53 points - leads from Glynn Poole (2018 250cc runner up) - 45 points - and Tom Short (2018 750cc Champion) - 39 points.

For the car competitors, FTD (fastest time of the day) award went to Ed Hollier in his Pilbeam MP62 36.54s, just over a second ahead of Andrew Forsyth in his OMS CF04, 37.90s. This completed a perfect weekend for Ed – he was also the quickest driver in Saturday’s Torbay Motor Club event at Wiscombe – again just pipping Andrew Forsyth.

In the Henney’s Cider Classic Speed Championship, honours went to Gary Cox in his Reliant Scimitar “Lemon Slice” 46.69s from Martin Jones – Brabham BT21 47.37s.

Results:

National Hill Climb Association – Round 7

Tom Short – KTM SMR (B1) 41.71s

Tommy Hodges – KTM SMR (B777) 42.54s

Paul Jeffery – Honda CR (B3) 42.92s

Dan Hurley – Honda (B584) 43.56s

Peter Short – KTM SMR (B799) 43.98s

Callumn Short – KTM (B9) 44.01s

Guy Ursell – KTM SMR (B4) 44.10s

Mark Short – Aprilia SXV (B708) 44.20s

Simon Hocking – Husqvarna (B506) 44.28s

Jamie Mitchell – TM SMX (B6) 44.52s

To view pictures from this event, please visit my Flickr album

To view a video of this event, please visit my YouTube channel

A heads up before hand would have been nice.

Looks like a good do.

Looks good , I might go to this ........ next year

There is another hillclimb at Wiscombe for bikes / side cars on the 15th September - for details go to the NHCA web site www.nhca.co.uk or the Wiscombe Park web site www.wiscombepark.co.uk