Alex Summers continued his stunning early season form to extend his lead in the British Hillclimb Championship at Doune over the weekend, as the championship headed North for the first of two events at the Scottish hill this season.
Summers added a second place and then a win in his DJ Firestorm to make it five wins from nine run-offs to date. The weekend allowed Summers to extend his championship lead to an impressive 16 points, as the consistently quick Will Hall moved into second place in his Gould GR59.
It was a mixed weekend in Scotland for title contenders Matthew Ryder and Wallace Menzies. Ryder took a handy fourth in the opener after a massive effort to rebuild his car following his Shelsley Walsh accident, but he lost out in the second run-off when he ran first on a very wet track and had to find out how much grip was available. Menzies, meanwhile, took fourth in the rain for what was his best finish of a challenging season so far.
In the dry on Saturday, Sean Gould was stunning and pipped Summers by eleven hundredths of a second to bag another Doune victory in the car he shares with Ryder. Hall took the final podium place, ahead of Ryder but Menzies was back in seventh behind Trevor Willis and David Warburton.
However, when the rain came down on Sunday afternoon, Summers qualified fastest and ran last. Being able to see what everyone else had done was no handicap and Summers was quick in the lower part of the hill before carrying that speed all the way to the finish. His mighty 39.46s was the only sub-40s climb in the second run-off and eclipsed Gould and everyone else by over half a second. Warburton was sensational in his 1600cc Gould GR59 and bagged third ahead of Menzies, Hall and Dave Uren.
Written by Paul Lawrence and published in partnership with Autosport.
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