Gurston Down Hillclimb pictures from Saturday

[quadra]

Gurston Down played host to the British Hillclimb Championship this weekend and being as I live nearby I thought I would go and watch the practice on Saturday.
The weather was good (forecast for Sunday was terrible and the racing was actually cancelled), and there were some very interesting cars racing.

Plenty of retro's in attendance in various categories.










The Imp above was powered by a turbo charged engine and certainly did shift.



Great to see some diversity in the line-up, with a wide arched Legacy and a very well prepared Citreon Ax.








With this being a British round of the championship there were a lot of single seater type cars, who were vying for championship honours. These cars are very fast (150mph over the finish line in the dry), but they just don't do it for me.



There were two cars that stood out in the paddock. The first was a Lotus powered by a twin turbo Rover V8. Lots of engineering and sounded lovely.







And the second car was a Lancia Stratos replica (Hawk Cars) powered by a 2 litre V8, longitudinally mounted and driven through a Hewland transaxle.

The engine was developed using two Yamaha R1 blocks and heads, mounted on a bespoke crankcase to create the 2 litre V8 setup.









And that's it. A great day out (that only cost £6 to get in) with some very fast and diverse cars, what's not to like.

[HoTWire]

What a cool selection of cars. Relatively local to me, but post Gathering means having weekends off from car stuff ! haha

Stratos rep looked great, how did it go?

[strikey]

its been around for a while by the look of it.

[kieranv]

Awesome, I love the variety you always get at these hillclimbs, I'm off to the Bo'Ness revivial this weekend, usually some decent metal at that event too.

[quadra]

Aug 27, 2018 14:46:14 GMT HoTWire said:

Stratos rep looked great, how did it go?

It went well, although the driver did have an off in the first practice run. Sounded brilliant.

[Darkspeed]

Clearly I do have a bias towards these cars - and one day I do hope to turn up at a gathering in my interpretation - I love the engineering around the R1 V8 - not sure if its a TKD engine or one of the others. The sound - hmmmm great as it is from that engine, it's wrong for the car but you cant have everything.

That Banks type 42? Europa is just jaw dropping - Turbo Imp with the G15 of Andy Russel in the background - I think that would pretty well sum up my camera roll for the days - Awesome thanks for sharing.

[discostew38]

Great photos
I really like the lotus
Don't see enough hill climb stuff
there's no TV coverage that I'm aware of and very little in the way of forum/Facebook Internet
I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find it but it's only when I see something like this I then think to look

I'm not sure how the classes work etc but it does seem to be a bit of a free for all where people can try new things "see what works"
The end result is some crazy modifications
It's comes across as a Motorsports for retired engineers

Now I've done one hill climb (the gathering) I class myself as a pro 😆
I don't know what's involved in hillclimb events and how you would go about taking it up as a sport but I quite fancy doing it ?

[Darkspeed]

Aug 28, 2018 17:06:06 GMT discostew38 said:

Great photos
I really like the lotus
Don't see enough hill climb stuff
there's no TV coverage that I'm aware of and very little in the way of forum/Facebook Internet
I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find it but it's only when I see something like this I then think to look

I'm not sure how the classes work etc but it does seem to be a bit of a free for all where people can try new things "see what works"
The end result is some crazy modifications
It's comes across as a Motorsports for retired engineers

Now I've done one hill climb (the gathering) I class myself as a pro 😆
I don't know what's involved in hillclimb events and how you would go about taking it up as a sport but I quite fancy doing it ?

I think that there are plans to increase its profile by live streaming or some such as I think I read in my local(Loton Park) clubs magazine that one of the long standing commentators for the sport is leaving the role due to his commentary becoming a public broadcast rather than banter to enthusiasts over a local PA.

[quadra]

Aug 28, 2018 17:06:06 GMT discostew38 said:

very little in the way of forum/Facebook Internet
I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find it but it's only when I see something like this I then think to look

I'm not sure how the classes work etc but it does seem to be a bit of a free for all where people can try new things "see what works"
The end result is some crazy modifications
It's comes across as a Motorsports for retired engineers

Now I've done one hill climb (the gathering) I class myself as a pro 😆
I don't know what's involved in hillclimb events and how you would go about taking it up as a sport but I quite fancy doing it ?

Gurston down Hillclimb have a facebook page, which is fairly basic but helps keep you up to date about upcoming events.

Class structure is wide and varied, but most cars running unusual engines (i.e. not the original one)end up in Super Libre.

Gurston Down do a hillclimb school throughout the year and as part of this you can gain your MSA national B licence. Details here www.gurstondown.org/gurston-down-hill-climb-school/

[vanpeebles]

Aug 28, 2018 17:06:06 GMT discostew38 said:

I don't know what's involved in hillclimb events and how you would go about taking it up as a sport but I quite fancy doing it ?

Get a job as a tofu delivery driver, and drive up and down the same hill every day

[discostew38]

Aug 29, 2018 9:44:31 GMT vanpeebles said:

Aug 28, 2018 17:06:06 GMT discostew38 said:

I don't know what's involved in hillclimb events and how you would go about taking it up as a sport but I quite fancy doing it ?

Get a job as a tofu delivery driver, and drive up and down the same hill every day

You've been watching to many Japanese movies 😀
You forgot to mention my dad needs to be an ex racing driver and own a Toyota 👍

[vanpeebles]

Rumbled

[discostew38]

Thanks for the replys guys
I will look into this some more
I know there's no such thing as a cheap Motorsport but I recon if you treat this more as a hobby by just doing the odd event it would give me somewhere to use the cars I have in a competitive way (a reason to build them in the first place)

[keyring]

Great photos, thanks for sharing! Looks like a great turn out, some extremely cool cars! Love the stratos!

Hillclimb does seem like it could be a fun sport to get into, I’m desperate to try find myself a hobby I can try get myself into for the better weather months

[scimjim]

The blown imp belongs to Eric Morrey (Scimitar and clan crusader owner) and puts out somewhere in the region of 200BHP :shock:

[scimjim]

I sprint/hill climb an SS1 - shout if you have any questions. There’s specific regs for a lot of clubs but they’re mainly based around the MSA regs and many clubs use the MSA regs only.

Until this year, there was 3 main classes for sprint/hillclimbing “normal” cars (so I’m ignoring single seaters and supersports):

Roadgoing series production (over 1000 cars manufactured pa) or specialist production (over 20 cars manufactured pa)

Modified (series or specialist) production

Sports Libre

In VERY broad terms, they’re as the titles suggest but in fact you can modify a roadgoing car (within the regulations) quite a lot but it must have the original type of engine block, head, gearbox and diff casings in the original positions (induction is free but there’s a penalty for forced induction, whether OE or not).

There are lists of specific modifications you can and can’t carry out for each class, safety regs for each class, safety regs for drivers, etc, etc - rather than trying to digest the rule book (which will drive you mad!) simply ask anyone that has competed very recently.

There’s also 3 lists of permitted tyres - list 1a, 1b and 1c, which are essentially road tyres (rain sport 3 for example), sticky road legal tyres (R888R for example) and non-road legal tyres and certain classes have to use tyres from specific lists.

A new class was introduced this year to try and bring new blood into the sport, called Standard - these are Road-Going Series Production Cars – Saloons and Sports Cars produced in quantities of not less than 5000 per annum of unitary construction, two wheel drive and up to 2litre engine capacity. The cars must be manufactured after 1st January 2000 and be type approved. Any replacement components fitted must be a Standard Part/Standard Pattern Part and they can only use list 1a tyres.

The challenge of getting every corner spot on in 60, 80, 100 seconds is immense and the satisfaction when you do is huge (so I’ve heard )