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Motorsport

06 Jul 2021

Photos by Chris Bannister JCB Photography

Rain stops play at Harewood Hillclimb

Fifth round ended early after one timed run at Harewood

The Petro-Canada Lubricants Porsche Club Speed and Hillclimb Championship with Pirelli was at Harewood Hill Climb for the fifth round of the Championship – just in time for some biblically wet weather that eventually caused the event to be abandoned following declaration of one complete set of timed runs as the final and only times. Despite the later deluge, the practice and first timed run were completed under warm and dry conditions.
 
Three competitors entered Class 5 with Thomas Robinson (911 Carrera 3) making a second appearance in the Championship after Prescott to finish in third place with 69.30. Bettering Thomas’s time by just over a third of a second, Martin Leach (911E) achieved 68.96 for second place. Making the most of the dry weather while it lasted Stephen Jory (944) put in a stunning run to take the class win in 67.43.
 
As ever this season, Class 4 made up the largest class of Porsches with seven drivers entered. The fastest three were close with just three quarters of a second between them. Geraint Evan’s (911 3.3 Carrera) timed run put him in third place with 67.15 while Wayne Eason (986 Boxster) finished ahead of Geraint by 0.16 seconds for second place. Despite a near disaster early in the day when his Boxster S battery caught on fire and almost destroyed his car, Andy Fagan got back into the swing of things with the generous help of fellow competitors and went on to win first place with a time of 66.41.
 
With two competitors in Class 3 David Watson (Cayman S) completed his fifth outing this season and finished the day in second place with a final run of 70.05, just over 4.5 seconds behind Karl Lupton (Supercharged 968-engined 944). Karl’s long experience and skill in handling his formidable 944 was evident again at Harewood, with a super, class-winning run of 65.5.
 
Last, but not least, Tim Barber and David Hilton make up Class 1 in this Championship and they have both been laying down some impressive markers. In their shared GT3, David took second place in 63.74 while Tim created a gap of 1.99 seconds – amazingly, a relatively large difference in this close contest – to finish with a remarkable FTD of 61.74 and the class record for Porsche Championship cars at Harewood.
 
It has been an intense and demanding selection of hill climbs to start this season – we now move onto the first circuit this year – Castle Combe on 17 July.
 
Results can be seen here
 
Current Championship standings here