Round 4 of the Pirelli Ferrari Hill Climb Championship was also the second installment of a rare Harewood double header and the Sunday was promising to be a much warmer event than the previous day.

We were joined by the top single seater drivers in the British Hillclimb Championship and the prospect of seeing the top 12 run off at close range swelled the spectator numbers, but it was quite noticeable that the paddock we normally share with hatchbacks and classic classes was emptier than usual.

The Ferrari Entry was identical for both days, with the drivers staying over at the wonderfully comfortable and locally situated Bridge Hotel just north of Wetherby, and attending a sumptuous dinner that evening in the hotel’s ornately decorated dining room, superbly organised by John and Anne Swift. Of course the serious competitors were in bed straight after the coffee was served.

After an early start with the full English breakfast, it was a short drive to warm the mechanicals up on the way to the track. As Chris Butler left the hotel he seemed to get lost on the roundabout outside, not knowing which exit to take he was seen circulating for at least 2 minutes (but he later revealed he was scrubbing his front tyres in, i think he’s just hooked on roundy-roundy racing.!)

In practice almost all of the competitors were back to their previous day’s fastest times, Ian Chadwick was up to speed by his 2nd run of the day with his fastest so far on 80.84 seconds, Sean Doyle (308 GT4) was back in the 71 second bracket and Pauline Goodwin in the 328 was only around half a second off her Saturday best with 73.70. Both of John Swift’s 355 practice runs were in the 71’s, as were Chris Hitchman’s in the similar tipo but he was slightly faster on his first practice on 71.07.  Phil Whitehead (355) was back in the 68 seconds similar to the previous day, and Richard Allen (355) and Richard Prior (also 355) were both ahead of their Saturday times by the end of 2nd practice with 68.50 & 67.51 respectively.

Chris Butler had shrugged off any dizziness from the magic roundabout and was down to 67.17 in the 355, while Nick Taylor was fastest of the morning, taking 66.98 in his first practice run and electing to miss 2nd practice to save his 348 GTC’s slipping clutch until the more important afternoon session.

Over the lunch break the drivers pondered on the performance of Nick Taylor with his first hillclimb appearance on List 1B tyres, most being surprised that a short hillclimb did bring them up to temperature, but the results so far have been impressive (even with a slight slipping clutch).

The weather even tried to turn against Nick when it started to rain before the competition runs began, but fortunately it was only a passing shower and the track was back to normal by the time we reached the startline.

The first two runners of Ian Chadwick and Sean Doyle were slightly down on their best practice with 82.76 and 72.09, but Pauline Goodwin was improving steadily today and stood on 73.18 (exactly the same as her first run the day before!)

John Swift was on his best of the weekend so far with 71 seconds dead, followed by Richard Allen who elected to just take the first run and got a banker time in of 69.48 just before he packed his car and headed off to make an appearance at the FOC spring picnic at Chatsworth House.

Richard Prior set the fastest of the batch so far and broke his personal best time by recording 67.45 and Lorraine Hitchman put in a time of 76.73 which proved to be her best official run of the day. Wendy Marshall also put in her best official of the weekend on the first run, overcoming any fear from her off at Quarry corner yesterday to clock 80.21 seconds.

John Marshall now took over the lead on 67 seconds dead in the 430 Scuderia, and Peter Rogerson (360) managed his best time over both days and not only equalled his handicap target time but also his PB which he set here in September 2009 with 75.13 seconds.

Nick Taylor was back up to speed and now topped the Sunday time sheet with 65.28 (almost 1 ¾ seconds ahead of next placed man John Marshall) which left only Chris Butler in the class to go. He started well, with both split times up on yesterdays figures, but unfortunately ran low on fuel at the top half of the track and misfired his way through the speed trap at 58mph (instead of 80.!) but still got a time of 69.88.

The last official run was now more important than ever for Chris who had to move up the chart to maintain his string of high points scores. Ian Chadwick now got to grips with his 348 and set a personal best time of 80.56, but Wendy Marshall just kept ahead of him with her earlier run of 80.21 and this one consistently close on 80.26. Peter Hitchman gave his best of the event with 73.24 seconds which gives him 11th on scratch.

Pauline Goodwin went quicker to close in on Sean Doyle’s time but her 72.54 wasn’t enough to catch him even though Sean was feeling the pressure and had to make sure of his position and went quicker still, his 71.60 good enough for a haul of 12 championship points.

John Swift did improve on his final run and now recorded 70.85, while Chris Hitchman went quicker to get below 70 seconds and finished on his best of the weekend on 69.34.
John Marshall pushed his personal best in the Scud to 66.82 and onto a podium spot as Prior couldn’t improve on his time and finished 4th on scratch, with dark horse Phil Whitehead gaining on him for 5th place when he clocked 67.91 in his last attempt.

The last 2 runners in the Ferrari class would now be on for a nail biting finish. Nick Taylor with his clutch problems and Chris Butler hopefully carrying a lot more fuel now.
Looking at the scoreboard, both cars covered the 0-64ft in a very good time. Nick on 2.40, and Chris on 2.41 seconds. At their first split they were only separated by 6 hundredths of a second, and the speed trap figures showed an identical 81 mph for both cars.

Chris reached the finish line and the clock showed 66.34 seconds, frustratingly not enough to catch Nick for the scratch win. Meanwhile the 348 GTC of Taylor was using the List 1B grip to great effect and, not wanting to risk Butler taking the lead off him, was driving with the much admired aggression we all know Nick for. His time at the top was 64.82 and a new Ferrari class record (beating Jon Goodwin’s record time of 65.16 which has stood from 2002) and a worthy winner today collecting the 17 points while Chris’s run bagged him the maximum 20 points, with Richard Prior taking the 15.

Next up: Prescott : 29 May.

Click here for (unofficial) results and points.

Click here for (unofficial) Championship positions.

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