ROUND 3 : Harewood : 8 May 2010
by Graham Easter

Round 3 of this year's hillclimb championship was in fact the first hillclimb after a couple of sprints. Harewood is a Club favourite though the entry was down over previous years but still healthy at 16, with 15 actually making the start. Amongst these was PFHC debutant Lakeland AGO Ian Chadwick in a 348ts. Notable absentees were last-time winner Christian Mineeff and Mike Spicer, both on sabbaticals of varying degrees of officialness. Also missing (and later regretting it) was Andrew Holman.

The major point of interest was Nick Taylor's 1B tyres. Noise problems meant that we had been denied seeing how they would go at Goodwood. A major difference between there and here was the weather. At Goodwood it was baking hot. At Harewood it was very cold with a wind chill factor of about 10°, making it about -5° (well it felt like it anyway). Practice immediately ended the speculation and Nick was in front on a 65.72, over 1½ seconds quicker than anyone else. Chris Butler was another on new tyres, a pair of fronts at least. They weren't scrubbed and he was complaining of understeer. In addition a spectating Rev. Richard Preece helpfully pointed out that they were in fact two years old.

The fact that the 1Bs worked was reinforced on R1 when Nick further reduced his time to 65.44 despite omitting to change up at one point. John Marshall was second on 67.15. As Harewood is much more stop start than Goodwood the 430 Scud was not enjoying the advantage here it had there. Chris Butler (355) had either found some or got a grip and was breathing down his neck on 67.37. These were well ahead of Richard Prior, who at last got to play with his new toy. He, RA and Chris Hitchman were all in the 39s. Sean Doyle (GT4) had a spin coming out of Chippy's. This is the problem when you switch the traction control off. He carried on and (much) better was to come. Wendy-Ann Marshall chucked it off in "Orchard", the 328 getting stuck in the gravel trap, but the efficient marshals soon extricated it. She got going and drove to the top. The car was only a little worse for wear, but had about a ton of gravel on board, some of it wedged into tyre beads. She missed the second run as she nipped to nearby ATS at Pannal where they dealt with it most efficiently and only charged her a tenner.

Taylor's superiority was confirmed on R2 when his 65.10 broke Jon Goodwin's 8 year old record. Jon Marshall was second on 66.92 with Chris Butler right behind him on 66.97. Amazingly, despite a PEP of +2.5%, on this run Nick also had the max. points! Phil Whitehad (355) had a useful improvement to 68.76 which was to be his best of the day. Sean Doyle too recorded his best time on this run. Not only was this a personal best, it was (probably) the best time by a standard GT4 and would give him third place points, the first time for a GT4 in a very long time. Husband and wife Chris (355) and Lorraine Hitchman (328) were to set their best times on this run too.

It was so cold that many were forced to seek refuge in cars during lunch, but when Run 3 came around many were beginning to suffer from hypothermia. Despite this most set their best times on this run. Nick Taylor was not one of them. His clutch had begun to slip but he was still way in front on a 65.15. Chris Butler got down to 66.62 to pass John Marshall to take second and steal the max. 20 points from Taylor who got the 17. Richard Prior looked good in his 355 straightaway and improved again to 68.19 to knick third place points from Doyle. Some consolation for Sean would be that he won the Handicap.

RA was in the 68s too to come fifth, comfortably ahead of Phil Whitehead (355). This was Phil's first outing of the year and he admitted to being a bit "match rusty". Swifty did 3 runs in the 71s, his last being his best on 71.27. PG improved on her first run by a hundredth, but Peter Hitchman (355) knocked a useful 1.1 seconds off. Peter Rogerson's TdF 360 F1 looked and sounded fab as always and his last run was his best too. Ian Chadwick whopped 2.4 seconds off his best time on his last run, which was a great way to finish his first meeting and the gallant Wendy-Ann returned to the track to take her last run.

Nick Taylor's performance on his 1Bs provided the main interest of the meeting. He said it makes the car feel more like a race car, more precise and much more enjoyable to drive. You can carry more speed into the corner and get the power down earlier. Interestingly he felt they may even be safer as they don't snap away quite so readily as 1A’s. It's early days, but it looks like they do provide a way for those with older tipi to have a better crack at outright wins.

A bitterly cold day but interesting day and at least it didn't snow. Another noticeable difference between here and Goodwood was organisational efficiency and as this was a double-header (for the first time) our gallant racers would return tomorrow and do it all again.