The Club's hillclimbers headed north for their second round in as many weekends - a necessity brought about by the re-scheduled Gurston Down event. Despite this, Harewood still attracted the large number of Ferraris which has become traditional and 21 drivers came to do battle. The BARC Yorkshire Centre made everyone welcome as usual and the commentator was by far the best informed at any venue this year.

All of the leading contenders and quick blokes were there, with the notable exception of local lad Nick Frost who'd forgotten to get his entry in! However, it was nice to see a spectating Nick and even nicer that he’d brought photographer Alan Jackson. But he had Lesley scrubbin' floors again......

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Andrew Holman (Mondial) had a difficult weekend with an off in Quarry on his first practice run, then a repeat performance on P2. Poor Andrew’s car came to a halt on R1 with clutch failure, ending a miserable weekend for him. There were an unprecedented number of Ferraris taking to the scenery at this meeting and quite a few cars featured "bravery" stripes on their door mirrors from clipping corner posts, which also showed how hard some were trying. The FHCC is a friendly and highly sociable Series but this sometimes masks an underlying steely determination to do well.

Lorraine Hitchman (328) improved by just under 1½ seconds on R2 to record 75.59 and close in on Peter Rogerson's first run time of 75.14, which was his best of the weekend; but Pauline Goodwin (328) finished well clear of both of them by recording 73.21 on R2. This was a brave effort as she was sharing Christian Mineeff’s 328, her own having retired hurt after plunging straight on into the tyre wall on P2 when she tried to take Quarry at a speed more suited to a new Gould GR55 rather than a middle-aged Ferrari. PG would like to publicly express her gratitude to Mineeff for this apparently generous offer, but those who know him better suspect it had more to do with getting his tyres and brakes pre-warmed! [Untrue - Ed]

The 328s of John Dobson and Andy Grier were split by former fellow 328 pilota Jolyon Harrison, who was making his first appearance in a 355 - he was half a second quicker than Dobbo with a 71.96; but Andy Grier's last run effort in the family 328 gave him a similar advantage over Harrison. John Swift looked a bit tentative in his 355 and it turned out that something about the 355 didn’t feel quite feel right to the wily old racer; still it’s been nice to see Swifty back in the FHCC and we hope he comes out to play again next year.

Chris England drove his 308 with his usual brio but he too was complaining of a handling problem, which later turned out to be the result of mismatched tyres, new rears and old fronts not communicating too well! Mark Buckland drove his raucous Mondial cabriolet aggressively to finish 12th, just behind the more “hard core” hillclimbers, one of a number of good performances he’s turned in in his first year with the Series.

The next few places were filled by a tight batch of 355s. Peter Hitchman, driving son Chris’s 355 as his Mondial was playing up again, was one of five drivers of the tipo whose times were covered by just over a second! Peter recovered from understeering off and then spinning in the first corner on R1 to finish on 69.69 on R2, just two-hundredths of a second behind more experienced 355 operator Phil Whitehead, whose second run time of 69.67 also proved to be his best. David Tomlin was another to have an off in practice, but he recovered well to record a 69.41 on R2 on his first visit to the hill. Richard Allen, fresh from his second place at Gurston in the 575M, was back in his 355 and improved on his May Harewood time, getting into the 69s comfortably; but Chris Hitchman was the top slice of Hitchman bread in this 355 sandwich and his second run time of 68.57 gave him a useful advantage over RA.

Former Champion Geoff Dark (308) had been closing inexorably on long-time Championship points leader Richard Prior and he really delivered, recording his best ever Harewood time of 68.19, a great improvement of eight tenths. This really put the pressure on Richard, whose first run time of 68.16 was three-hundredths quicker than Geoff, but over half a second down when the all important PEP factors had been applied. Richard had it all to do on the last run and really went for it but went straight on at Orchard and added another broken 348 front bumper to his collection. Therefore Dark took the 17 points for second place and added to his score, whereas third place was no good to Prior, as he was already dropping thirds. However, the maximum points at Harewood again went to Christian Mineeff's 328, who held third place overall for the first two runs but was pipped by an equally focused Chris Butler (355) on the final run; his 67.54 beating the 328 pilota by just 0.16 seconds.

Harewood record holder Jon Goodwin (355) was the only driver in the 66s after the first runs, but Nick Taylor (348GTC), currently the man on form, whopped a massive 1.1 seconds off his time on R2. Gooders was slower and neither improved on R3, leaving Taylor with his fourth win in a row; however he was still not happy as his 348GTC doesn’t howl like Nick Frost's!

This result meant that Geoff Dark closed to within one point of Richard Prior, with Richard needing to win in future to add to his score. If he fails to do this and Geoff finishes third or better at the next round, then the Essex driver will move into the lead of the Championship.

So what were most drivers thinking about as they left Harewood? Well, judging by many mobile phone conversations - it was getting a curry in! The ideal end to a hard day's motor sport - bet Schuey's got the Vufflens-le-Château Tandoori on speed dial.

Post Script
Are you at a loss how to entertain and amuse your Sweet as the nights draw in? Then spice up your evenings by clicking here (adults only).

Click here for Results & Championship Positions.

Click here for the points from every round.

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Click here to return to the Ferrari Hill Climb Championship page.

Harewood always attracts a huge Ferrari entry

Andrew Holman had a weekend to forget

Lorraine improved dramatically on R2

Peter Rogerson was one of a large 355 contingent

PG was unfazed by her practice shunt and drove a borrowed 328 well

Dobbo locks his 328 into Quarry

Jolyon Harrison appeared in a 355 for the first time

Andy Grier in the family 328

Swifty wasn't happy with his 355's handling...

...neither was Chris England with his 308's

Mark Buckland charged hard as usual

Peter Hitchman adapted well to the boy's 355

Phil Whitehead got into the 69s...

...but not as far as David Tomlin

RA prepares for blast off

pics by Alan Jackson, Dave Clark, PG & Graham Easter