This was my first event of the season, and it was great to meet up with the hillclimbers again. I was disappointed that a few were absent, which meant that the number of Ferraris competing was down to 15, one of the lowest Harewood turnouts for quite a while. I’m absolutely sure the numbers will be up again later in the year though, towards the climax of what is already a very thrilling championship.

It was a really murky, grey, cold start to the day. 9°C and drizzly rain early on. Later, it brightened a bit and the wind picked up. There were still a lot of fast moving clouds around, but the track had the potential to dry out if the rain clouds blew away, which indeed they did.

Unsurprisingly, everyone took it easy in their first practice run, except Brian Jackson and Richard Allen who were throwing caution to the rain and both sped through the Esses, Richard taking a rather unorthodox line and showing the fastest wet time of all between Clark's and the Esses.

Geoff Dark was the last Ferrari driver up the hill in much improved conditions and so unsurprisingly recorded the best P1 time with a smidge over 73s. Swifty managed to sneak a second practice run in, after watching a gazebo from the paddock take off in the wind and fly over the track, narrowly missing Pauline Goodwin up the main straight.

After PEP corrections, it was interesting to note that Brian Jackson had recorded the second best time behind Geoff Dark with Richard Prior in third. Lower down in the pecking order, Pauline Goodwin, Peter Rogerson, Phil Whitehead and John Swift were all separated by less than 0.1s….WOW!

The second practice runs took place with everyone on an even footing. The track had dried a lot, although still skatey and wet in certain places. Not surprisingly the times were much faster all round with everyone but Geoff Dark improving by betwen 3 to 10 seconds. Charles Haynes was pleased with his improvement, although he was scratching his head at how Nick Frost could possibly go 15 seconds faster than him over such a short distance in the same type of car (equivalent to about 300 metres or about 20% of the track).

The battle at the top began with Brian Jackson laying down a marker of 70.75s, which is pretty hot for a meagre 3 litres of historic Fazza powa. Richard Prior, Nick Taylor and Nick Frost produced the top three times, all of them breaking 70s and with only 0.4s separating them. Taylor headed up the rankings with a 69.06s run in his Mondial t, but Frost was close on his heels with 69.15s (equivalent to a distance of half a car at the line).

Run 1
The competition proper began after a fairly uneventful but very windy lunch break. The sun was out and it was very gusty and quite warm at the top of the hill. The track had almost dried out.

Tracey Haynes set what proved to be her best time of the weekend. This was a significant improvement, as her previous best had been done in a 355. Husband Charles couldn’t quite manage to get into the 70s, but made a further improvement with 80.4s, and now only 12 seconds behind Mr. Frost.

Pauline Goodwin was notably the best starter in P2 and on both of the runs. She romped home just 3/100ths of a second behind Mark Buckland. Peter Rogerson and John Swift could only manage slight improvements on their P2 times, putting them both behind Mark and Pauline.

Phil Whitehead continued to take chunks off his times with 70.21s, just behind Brian Jackson, who was certainly trying his best and driving with with great verve in the 308 (70.16s). Geoff Dark, with the rear end of his car matching his name, couldn’t quite keep up with Phil and Brian with 70.5s. Allen, with an amazingly quick start and all the way to the first check point around Chippy's (0.6s ahead of everyone else), laid down the gauntlet in his 355 with a very good 68.69s and 80mph through the speed trap. Prior couldn’t match this, and Taylor was on track until a spin at the start of Orchard bends which scuppered his chances.

Frost took back the 0.6s between the Country and Orchard, giving him the edge, by 0.22s from Allen. Prior, with the fastest final section of the day, arrived 0.2s ahead of Taylor for third place.

Run 2
The wind was still blowing quite strongly for Run 2, but it turned out to be a lovely warm afternoon. Everything was certainly to play for with such close times at the top, and points up for grabs once the PEPs were taken into account.

After breaking his record in Run 1, Richard Preece chipped a bit more off in Run 2 to come home in 75.36s, with improvements in all parts of the course except the start. Charles Haynes took nearly 2.5s off his R1 time to go sub 78s and get his PB at Harewood (previously 79.7s).

Len Watson also took a chunk off his R1 time and recorded 73.2s. Buckland continued to chip away, with a time of 70.87s, not quite as fast as his Mondial t time of 70.62s which he achieved last year, but good nevertheless in a car which he is not yet completely used to. [Thank you Geordie PR person - Ed.] Pauline Goodwin lost time in the first half of the course, despite another lightning start, and couldn’t make it up in the second half, but Pet, you did pip Mark on PEPs!

Peter Rogerson took a second or so off his R1 time, as did Whitehead with a sub 70s which would eventually put him in good fifth place on scratch.

Jackson took a smige off to end up on 70.09s, but he couldn’t quite break the 70s barrier which has only ever been done eight times in a 308 at Harewood. With only five competitors left to go up the hill, this time put Brian in a very strong position for good points, with the -2% PEP on his car, giving him a ‘normalised’ time of 68.69s.

Dark, who was up next, showed great consistency, but only clipped 0.04s from his R1 time putting him behind Brian with 70.44s. Prior in his 348ts was 0.4s faster than R1 at the first split and 0.6s faster at the second split, but lost valuable time in the second half. Despite this, he still improved to 68.89s, with no PEP correction, so 0.2s behind Brian for the points.

Taylor gave it his all and produced his fastest split times to cross the line with 68.68s, ahead of Allen by 1/100th. Without the champion’s 1% PEP penalty, this would have put him on the 20 points by 1/100th ahead of Brian, but instead it was to be only 13 points.

Frost remained focused on the task in hand and stormed up the hill in his fastest time of the day. Great times at all of the split points gave him a finishing time of 68.06s, 0.4s off his R1 time and the Class win with 15 points, behind Prior after PEPs were applied.

So, in the championship, Jackson seized the day with his first 20 points in a long time. A fabulous result for Brian and the first max. points for an ordinale 308 since who knows when. It also meant that everyone was talking about Jackson and not just Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood.

Prior picked up the 17 points and in the overall points chart is beginning to look like he did in 2005 when he won the championship. Dark got 12, which left him second in in the table, but Dark and Prior have done all of the events, unlike Taylor and Chris Butler.

And so we move on to MIRA, where the competition will be intense on a course that favours the more powerful tipos - watch this space…..

Click here for the results.

Click here for the Championship positions.

Click here for a PhotoShow by the Alan Jackson.

Click here for some stats you don’t normally see, just to pad out the report a bit (only kiddin’, actually they are quite interesting…if you like stats that is).

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

No smart captions - the pics can speak for themselves!

Tracey Haynes - 328 GTB

Charles Haynes - 348 GTC

Rikky Preece - Dino 308GT4

Len Watson - 328 GTB

John Swift - F355

Peter Rogerson F355 Spider

Pauline Goodwin - 328GTB

Mark Buckland - F355 GTS

Geoff Dark - 308m

Brian Jackson 308 GTB

Phil Whitehead - F355

Richard Prior - 348ts

Richard Allen - F355

Nick Taylor - Mondial t

Nick Frost - 348GTC

pics by Tricia & Dave Clark