The 500 Owners’ Association Hillclimb

Ninety degrees left, flat (courage) through the parkland, car goes light over Bunny’s leap, right through the blind gateway up through the tree-lined Esses, hairpin right at Sawbench, flat up Castle Straight and sharp hairpin left at Martini to the Finish.  That’s Wiscombe’s 1,000 yards . . . !

A bonus at this annual event is the variety of cars (plus bikes) in the paddock, from a 1275cc Morris Minor Traveller to Simon Taylor’s splendid ex-Moss HWM 5700cc Stovebolt Special, together with a huge variety of VSCC cars getting a day’s practice for their event on the Sunday, not forgetting the thirty or so 500cc and 1000cc Formula 3 cars of the 1950s.

A small but select band of Speedmogers enjoyed this year’s good weather in the delightful setting of Wiscombe Park, James Walter, James Andrews and Alan Foster.  We’re sure Howard Burton would love to have been with us but rightly the priority is to get his knee back in working order – hopefully by Loton.

Being in batch one, our practice runs were done before 9am but delays started to accumulate after that, mainly caused by mechanical failures amongst the cars that had been around for many decades, one or two approaching a similar birthday to David Attenborough.  James A sensibly decided to take practice gently in readiness for an assault on the first timed run (ex second practice under this year’s changed rule) which he did with great effect, chopping nearly 5 seconds off his practice run.   James W and Alan did their best times of the day, thankful that second practice is now counted as a timed run.   James A continued to get faster, clipping a further 3 to 4 seconds off as the day progressed which the other two could not match.

Delays continued post lunch and it became questionable whether a fourth run would be possible.   CofC Jason Hayes took the difficult decision to continue, knowing that it would be after 6pm by the time the event concluded – a 10 hour day for marshals.  As the only way out of Wiscombe is via the track, everyone was stuck in the paddock until after 6pm.   As James W needed to get back to Salisbury, he opted out of the last run so he could escape ASP, being content with his 99% score on handicap.  So we shall never know whether an inspired last run could have robbed Alan of his 100% score as he failed to improve on his first timed run.

Wiscombe is my favourite mainland hillclimb, having first visited as a spectator in the 1960’s when events were run by such clubs as the Aston Martin Owners.  Being a Devonian I am probably biased but I find this parkland setting the most attractive venue that the Championship visits.  It probably scares the pants off drivers who do not like trees and need run off space!