Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th May sees the first of two visits to Harewood Hillclimb in the 2022 season for the British Hillclimb Championship (BHC) presented by Avon Tyres.
The Yorkshire venue has hosted a round of the BHC for nearly sixty years. Harewood held its first competitive event back in September 1962, with its first BHC round taking place a couple of years later in 1964. The tracks original length was 1006 metres and was extended to its current length of 1448 metres in 1992. The hill is now the longest on the BHC calendar with the exception of Craigantlet in Northern Ireland, which is just over 250 metres longer.
The hill itself is quite a technical challenge, rising over 76 metres from bottom to top and incorporating a series of seven right hand and four left hand corners. The sting in the tail is the last corner, Quarry, being approached at high speed and tightening considerably before the finish line. Many a good run has unravelled at this point over the years!
The beauty of the hill from a spectator’s perspective is that it can be viewed nearly in its entirety from a single point, the fast approach to Quarry. With the paddock area being at this point too, spectators can watch the track action and take a close look at the competing cars without having to move too far from their chosen spot.
BHC competitors are joined for the weekend by the class based BHC Cup presented by classic car insurance broker Footman James. Here individuals compete in a wide variety of both road-going and racing cars to score points at venues across the UK mainland.
A high quality entry has been received with eight of last year’s top ten BHC finishers competing. Defending BHC Champion Wallace Menzies (Gould GR59 Cosworth XD) heads the entry list and is joined by joint 2022 BHC leaders Scott Moran (Gould GR59J) and Alex Summers (DJ Firestorm Cosworth XD). Young gun Matt Ryder is on the entry list too driving the ‘works’ Gould GR59J.
Joint 2022 BHC Cup leaders Steve Darley, driving Damien Bradleys super quick Subaru Legacy and Robert Marwood in his Renault Clio 172 are entered as are six of the eight drivers sharing third place at this early stage of the Championship. This really represents the cream of crop in this hard fought series.
Competitors in both National Championships are joined on Saturday by many local drivers competing in a wide variety of roadgoing and racing cars in the Acespeed Harewood Hillclimb Championship. The Ferrari Hillclimb Championship also has a “double header” weekend with many of the beautiful and iconic Italian road cars competing on both Saturday and Sunday.
Competitive action is scheduled to start at 9.00am on both days and will continue for the majority of the day. Tickets can be purchased on the gate.
So, make your plans to be in Yorkshire over the weekend of 7th & 8th May. Track action is sure to be fast and furious!