Matthew Ryder’s dominance of the high summer months in the British Hillclimb Championship continued at Prescott on Sunday with another double win to make it eight run-off victories in a row.
Ryder and his Gould GR59 were the class of a challenging day as unpredictable weather conditions threw a curved ball into the closing stages of the title race. After a very wet morning, the first run-off was on a still wet hill, but by the end of the afternoon it was dry enough for everyone to switch to slicks. That made little difference to Ryder, however, who coolly took two more wins despite the very close attentions of outgoing champion Wallace Menzies.
Ryder’s title rival Alex Summers had another good weekend and got the maximum out of the DJ Firestorm, but third and joint fourth place finishes did not change his points position.
A very wet morning meant that everyone went into the opening run-off on wet tyres and it was Ryder who turned in another faultless performance to claim victory with a 40.65s climb.
Menzies, meanwhile, in what proved to be the best weekend of a sometimes troubled season, was right on the money and was just nine hundredths of a second shy of what could have been his season's first win.
Summers and Will Hall, in the third of the Goulds, both broke the 41s mark ahead of Sean Gould and Trevor Willis, while young Alex Coles was once again a star of the show with a typically attacking 42.89s to bag seventh from David Warburton’s 1600cc Gould.
At the end of the afternoon, it was slicks all round even though the Esses in particular were still damp and cold as ambient temperatures fell away. Hall, Trevor Willis and Summers all set low 36s climbs to put the pressure on the final two runners as Ryder and Menzies wrapped up the day's action.
Rider upped the ante with a superb 35.71s and in the last climb of the day Menzies got even closer to his young rival with a 35.77s to finish just six hundredths adrift of victory. Gould and Dave Uren were sixth and seventh and then young Coles again turned on his talent to claim eighth in the 1300cc turbocharged Force TA.
Ryder said: “We just needed a solid weekend with some more consistent points. Wallace has chased me all the way there, and both of the results could easily been anywhere from first to fourth. It's so close between us. It still wasn't fully dry for the second run-off, but it was dry enough, and I had to treat it as a dry run, really. We put some slicks on, and I just had to give it a go.”
“I’ve just got to faster,” said Menzies with a smile after his best weekend of the season. “The boys have worked hard all weekend and we really came here to continue developing for 2025, so I’m pleased with the results.”
Fierce battles also typified the two run-offs for the Tin Top Challenge and it was the Skoda Fabia R5 of Roger and Scott Moran that set the pace against the mighty Subaru Impreza of Steven Daley and Damien Bradley and the SBR Chrono of Prescott debutant Simon Bainbridge.
Written by Paul Lawrence and published in partnership with Autosport
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