Alex Summers ensured that the British Hillclimb Championship title contest will go to the final round after he took a mighty double victory at Doune over the weekend.
Summers went to the Scottish hill for the penultimate event of the season knowing that he had to beat Matthew Ryder and bring a halt to Ryder's impressive summer sequence of eight run-off wins in a row. Sure enough, in changeable conditions, Summers was mighty at the technical hill and claimed both run-offs to keep the title open until the final weekend at Loton Park at the end of the month.
In wet conditions for the opening run-off Summers had to push very hard to eclipse Will Hall, who came closer than ever to his first run-off win of the season with a 40.56s. Running last, as fastest qualifier, Summers took the DJ Firestorm over the line just two hundredths of a second better than Hall.
Summer's result was made even better when Wallace Menzies pipped Ryder for third. Meanwhile, Jack Cottrill starred with a fine fifth in his Cosworth-engined Dallara.
At the end of the afternoon conditions were drier and this time Ryder ran Summers close. When Ryder was first to break the 36s mark with a 35.95s climb the pressure was on Summers, but he rose to the occasion and underlined his Doune pace with a winning 35.59s climb. “We needed that,” admitted Summers of a very important weekend in the season-long title race.
Hall and Menzies were third and fourth and this time Jonathan Varley drove a stormer to put his two-litre GWR Predator into fifth slot.
Written by Paul Lawrence and published in partnership with Autosport
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