After the hot, dry weather we’ve had recently it was a shock to find the first round of the Petro-Canada Lubricants Porsche Club National Speed and Hill Climb Championship getting underway on Sunday, 6 June in wet, showery weather.
An overly busy field of competitors meant that, after one or two drivers went off the 910 metre long track, there was little time for the practice sessions and the Porsche Club drivers had to make do with one damp practice run that left many of them fishtailing away from the start line before completing some cautious runs.
By the time we got to the afternoon timed runs the warm weather had returned and a busy grid of 19 Championship drivers got underway though previous Speed multi-Champion Graham Rose was forced to pull out following a suspected head gasket failure.
Class 1 drivers David Hilton and Tim Barber created the fastest Championship times on the day with David getting one run in before a drive-shaft failure knocked out their shared, and stunning slick-shod 996 GT3. David’s run was 33.50. 2016 Speed Champion Tim bettered that time by 1.24 seconds and took FTD in 32.26.
Experienced Speed competitor Mel Spear shared Class 3 with new boy David Watson at Shelsley. Driving a smartly presented red Cayman S David’s fastest time of 37.99 earned him second place while Mel took his well-known and historic 964 Cup Car to a class winning time of 35.65.
An incredible 12 drivers made up Class 4 at Shelsley with the fastest three within nine-tenths of a second of each other. Taking third place was another multi-championship winning driver Justin Mather in his Supercharged 944. Justin took third place in 35.34. Sharing a 911SC/RS with his father Ian, Nick Wadsworth beat Justin by a fraction of a second to get second place in 35.15. Experienced and accomplished hill climber Ian Wadsworth bettered Nick’s time by 0.72 seconds to take first in the class with an impressive 34.43.
Two very different but closely matched Porsches driven by experienced Speed drivers made up Class 5 with Martin Leach in second place in his pretty 3.0 911E with a fastest first run of 37.31. Stephen Jory drove his tidily presented 2.5ltr 944 to a class win of 35.85 – an impressive run that would sit well in the class above.
You can view photos from the event using the link below:
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