Gone In 36 Seconds

Hillclimbing is one of the oldest forms of motorsport and it remains in excellent health as a visit to the opening round of the 2025 Motorsport UK British Hillclimb Championship presented by Nova Motorsport proves...

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run," urged Rudyard Kipling in his life-guiding poem 'If.'

Sometimes, though, a minute can seem like a lifetime.

And here, at Prescott Speed Hillclimb, that is most definitely the case. In fact, we're talking little more than half a minute to achieve a worth of distance run. The outright record to summit this sinuous strip of tarmac, set by Matthew Ryder in a Gould GR59 in 2024, stands at just 34.60 seconds.

Nestled in the Cotswold Hills, the 1127-yard-long track at Prescott rises over 200 feet on a technically challenging course incorporating short straights, fast and slow corners and an unforgiving hairpin. Bathed in the spring sunshine, Prescott has its charm factor turned up to ten today.

The venue is home to the Bugatti Owners’ Club, and the first event was held 87 years ago, as the Prescott website recounts: "On Sunday, April 10th 1938 the Bugatti Owners' Club Spring Rally came to Cheltenham where 130 members and guests lunched at the Queens Hotel. They then drove in convoy to Prescott, led by Col. Godfrey Giles in his Type 18 Bugatti' Black Bess', to have a look at the new hill and try some informal timed runs. Ian Craig was fastest in his 5-litre 'Bachelier' Bugatti with a time of 55.58 seconds."

The works' Bugatti team visited the hill a year later, with ace French pilot Jean Pierre Wimille and company owner Jean Bugatti in attendance. This was in an era when hillclimbing held similar status to Grand Prix racing, and the light-blue Bugatti cars diced it out with the mighty Silver Arrow Auto Union machines across Europe.

All For One And One For All

Hillclimbing may no longer attract global mainstream automotive manufacturer involvement or anything even remotely close to Formula One-like levels of exposure. However, the sport still thrives across Europe and the UK, as the opening round of the 2025 Motorsport UK British Hillclimb Championship presented by Nova Motorsport proves today.

As competitors and their families catch up with fellow racers and their families, it's pretty clear that this is as much a social occasion as it is a sporting event. The atmosphere feels quite different from that of many circuit racing paddocks, something many drivers, including 75-year-old Dr Graham Wynn OBE, are quick and proud to point out.

"After I had a battle with cancer, I went into motorsport. I used to do circuit racing, but then I found that on circuits it was very cut-throat. There were a lot of young people coming into the sport with very rich parents, and they didn't mind getting you involved in their accidents, because 'Dad' could repair their car.

"In my experience of circuit racing, if something goes wrong, people are rubbing their hands with glee because that's someone they don't have to beat on the track. But in hillclimbing, if something goes wrong with your car, people gather around, and it can be your fiercest competitor, but they are there to help with whatever you need. They want you to get going because they want to beat you on the track."

While it is easy to see the appeal of hillclimbing, it is hard to think of another motorsport where time spent in the car is over so quickly. Except for sprints and, of course, drag racing, where the silverware at the very highest level in the US can be won in almost a tenth of the time it takes a top car to climb Prescott. Currently, the fastest time to cover a 1000-foot drag strip is a barely believable 3.641 seconds, set by Top Fuel racer Brittany Force in California in 2022.

Drag Racing With Corners

Compared with a blink-of-an-eye drag race run, hillclimbers obviously get a lot more time in the car. But maybe we should whisper this softly, although really there's no need to do it with an array of V6 and V8 engines warming up in the paddock. It's still not a lot of track time, is it?

Alex Summers, a fourth-generation hillclimber who pilots a DJ Firestorm powered by a 600bhp-plus Cosworth V8 and serves as a test driver for McMurtry Automotive, smiles at the question. He's heard it all before:

"Yeah, I get that from friends who are professional racing drivers. And then I ask them, 'Well, what about the Goodwood Festival of Speed? Did you enjoy driving there?' And they say, "Oh yeah, that was fantastic.' And, of course, Goodwood is a hillclimb…"

Many people liken hillclimbing to Formula One on a country lane, but Alex has another definition.

"I describe hillclimbing as drag racing with corners. If you can find a more intense driving experience and a faster, lighter, more tractable car on the planet, I'd be very surprised. Yes, a circuit race lasts longer, but I would rather spend a minute in a car with a power-to-weight ratio of 1500bhp per tonne than ten minutes in a car with 500 horsepower per tonne."

It's a good point – the sheer unmatched intensity of the experience – and it's one that's shared with many other drivers, including Sean Gould, who pilots a Gould GR59. The car is powered by a 670bhp Le Mans 24 Hours-spec V8 engine and weighs just 430kg. Since 1998, Gould cars have won the British Hillclimb Championship 23 times, taking over the mantle from Pilbeam, which had dominated the sport since the early 1980s.

"These cars are manufactured from carbon fibre, and they are miniature Formula One cars," explains Sean. "The power-to-weight ratio is comparable to an F1 car, and with sticky tyres, short wheelbase and unrestricted aerodynamics, they are quite a tool, really."

Quite a tool sounds like the understatement of the weekend. Launching such a missile up a country lane is not for the fainthearted.

"Hillclimbing is alien to any other form of motorsport. Traction is key; the cars are always spinning wheels, and they can do it at 120mph in the bone dry as the hills are quite bumpy compared with circuits," continues Sean."

"Driving the car is almost like playing a video game. Your reaction times have to be very quick, and you have to do the right thing at the right time because even the smallest error can be catastrophic. That's why many people don't exploit the limits and remain within the boundaries of what they are capable of."

Racing For A Short Time, For A Long Time

While it can't be denied that hillclimbing provides very short amounts of track time, with three or four runs per day, competitors remain fiercely loyal to the sport, and many drivers have been competing for decades. Many come from hillclimb dynasties with lineages that not only stretch into the past, but forwards too, into the future, as the next generation line up, eager to take the wheel.

Like more than a few drivers in the paddock, Matthew Ryder, 2024 British Hillclimb Champion and Prescott record-holder, was brought to his first hillclimb when he was just a few weeks old. He grew up learning the lines of the corners he would eventually sear through in his Gould GR59 Judd by watching his mother Caroline and father John compete.

Caroline was first brought to the hills by her father, 1982 British Sprint Champion Ken Ayers. She began competing in the 1980s and drives a Formula Ford on the hills today. "It's all about accuracy. You have to be millimetre-perfect," she explains, “you just cannot afford to go off your line when we are being timed to hundredths of a second."

Lindsay Summers, mother of Alex, can trace her family history in the sport all the way back to 1924 when her grandfather competed at Shelsley Walsh in an Aston Martin. Although she had always loved cars, Lindsay didn't drive her first hill with gloves, helmet and game face on until 16 years ago, when she was 47.

At first, Lindsay campaigned her own Austin Healey 100 road car, but then she began working her way through her husband Richard and son Alex's 'cast-offs', including a Formula Ford and a motorcycle-engined DJ Firehawk. Today, at the age of 63, she shares the championship-winning DJ Firestorm with Alex. Driving with full-throttle conviction, Lindsay explains with a smile that the Firestorm "gives me an exit for my adrenaline."

Hadyn Spedding is just starting his 47th season in his red Jaguar E-Type. "Apart from the Ohlins shock absorbers and the Avon Tyres, which I have always raced on, there's nothing on this car that you couldn't have put on it in the late 1960s." His sons Richard and Robert also compete successfully.

Hadyn admits that as he and the Jaguar approach a half-century together, his reactions may not be quite what they were, but that it doesn't matter too much as the E-Type remains a cooperative and a trusty a charge as ever: "She will slide her tail out, but she sends you a letter when she is going to do it, and you can catch her quite easily."

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway

Another driver who has been hillclimbing on Avon tyres for over forty years is Allan Warburton, who shares a Gould GR59 with his son David.

"Hillclimbing is the only form of motor sport that I've ever done. There's no such thing as cheap motorsport, but this is the least expensive, or one of the least," states Allan. "It's won on the smallest of margins, by 100ths of a second, but it's almost always won by the same people.

"The fact that you don't get a huge amount of time in the car is actually an advantage to drivers of considerable years. You've got to bear in mind, I've been up most of these hills five or six hundred times in my life, whereas the young guys may only have done it fifty or sixty times."

David Warburton concurs with his father's theory:

"Muscle memory is extremely important. My dad will switch his brain off when he goes up the hill; it'll just be his muscles twitching about the place, and he'll end up with a good time."

For Allan, though, it is slightly different. Each run requires total concentration: "It's super short and super intense. It takes 100% of my brain power to take care of the driving and to stop myself from panicking."

So, you feel the fear?

"Oh yes, if I am not shaking after a run, I know I have not been fast enough."

Neal and Alex Coles are also a father-and-son duo. Neal, who followed his father Roger into the sport, is currently leaving the driving to his son Alex in his supercharged Force TA Hayabusa 1300, but he describes himself as "not retired yet."

Being quite literally born into the sport, it was almost inevitable that Alex would follow in his grandfather and father's wheel-tracks. "I don't think I've missed a day since I was a few weeks old," he recalls with a smile. "I learned the hills from walking up them and watching my dad drive them."

And he proved a quick learner, too. After sampling a Formula Ford at just fifteen, he won the BHC’s sister Championship, the class based British Hillclimb Cup on his first attempt in 2022 at just seventeen years old, before he had even passed his driving test.

When asked what the secret to success is, Neal says it's a combination of youth and experience: "Maybe it is a bit of both, but I think in our case with Alex, youth played a big part in it. The younger drivers don't seem to overthink it too much, whereas maybe the older ones do."

Trust Your Car, Trust Your Tyres And Trust Yourself

While the camaraderie and the sheer thrill of threading a car on the limit up a narrow, bumpy tack remain unaltered since Col. Godfrey Giles first led his merry band to Prescott in 1938 remain unaltered, one thing keeps changing.

The clock keeps getting stopped earlier.

New hillclimb records certainly aren't set at every event, and when they are, it can often be by just hundredths of a second. But overall, the times are getting faster, and few drivers know more about this than Scott Moran, who has won the British Hillclimb Championship six times, taking a record 163 victories in the process. While not racing this weekend – he is here instead to support his friend Graham Wynn – Scott is far from retired.

"I'm 49, and I know I have slowed down," he admits. "But I still compete, and I still have the Gould GR61 in which I won all my championships. I am devoting more time to my family. The next step will probably be to share a car with my son Ollie, who is itching to start – just like I shared a car with my dad, Roger.

"I guess there's going to be a point where the times just can't go any faster. But, you know, you always say that, and it's like the 100-metre sprint. You think it just can never go any quicker. And yet, somehow, they still find time."

Lighter cars, more powerful engines and advances in aerodynamics and suspension set-ups are all leading to faster times. In addition, says Scott, some of the venues are at the point where they will need resurfacing, and that will make things quicker, too.

Scott also believes electric technology could take the sport to the next level. He explains that cars with an electric motor at each wheel, powered by a small, lightweight but ultra-powerful battery that only needs to carry enough energy for one ascent, could completely change the game.

After all, the technology already has done just that at Pikes Peak Hillclimb in Colorado, where in 2018 Romain Dumas shredded the 8:13.878 course record set by Sébastien Loeb in 2013 with the Peugeot 208 T16 with a jaw-dropping 7:57.148 in his all-electric Volkswagen I.D. R.

Fan-assisted technology, where the car, in effect, sucks itself onto the surface, could also prove a disruptive force if perfected for British hillclimb courses, says Scott. Indeed, in 2022, Max Chilton broke the Goodwood Hillclimb record at the Festival of Speed, previously held by Roman Dumas in the electric VW I.D. R, in the fan-assisted McMurtry Spéirling.

Whether or not those two technologies get transferred to mainstream hillclimbing in the UK remains to be seen. However, unless autonomous technology takes over, human skill and bravery will remain the most critical factors.

Scott has built his career on an almost supernatural ability to always find the time when he had to. Sometimes, he settled for championship points, but more often than not, he went for it, pushing right to the limit and taking what he describes as 'calculated risks.'

"I always like to go last so I can see everyone else's time and know what I have to beat. There are times when you have to push right to the limit. It can be frightening, especially on a hill like Doune in Scotland. If you get it wrong there, you'll rip the wheels off and turn your car into a sled. And when you get out, you definitely think, 'I don't want to do that again.'"

Yet, like all the elite hillclimbers, Scott Moran did do it again, settling himself into his car, forcing heart and nerve and sinew to serve one more turn and set one more time that should have been impossible.

Every time he took a calculated risk, placing a wheel so close to the Armco barrier that would rip it off if he was just a few milometers out in his judgement, Scott was putting his trust in the Avon rubber that he used to win his six championship and of course, in his own skill.

At Prescott, Will Hall and Matthew Ryder set the fastest times of the weekend in the two Top 12 Run Offs of the day – 35.71 for Will and 35.38 for Matthew – trusting in the same combination of driving skill and Avon tyres.

As Rudyard Kipling also said: "If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…"

Photos thanks to Paul & Ben Lawrence