Forgive me if this may look an ego trip, but it is a great part of my life.
2023 marked our 30 years doing the Midland Hill Climb Championship, but importantly the 6th time we have won the Over 2 litre Sports Libre class in my Lola-Porsche.
The year kicked-off with the car all ready to go well before the first meeting at Prescott in April, just the slicks were a bit old having run about 30 or 40 miles the year before, but looked ok.
The car was thus unchanged from 2022 when we ran the 320 bhp engine for the first time, just an oil change and a good clean down, if it isn't broken, leave it alone!
My real competiton over the year (9 meetings) was Mike Luck in his borrowed Zolfe GT, a very focused road/race sports car design that was still born. Mike had a hand in it's development. He is an outstanding driver and gave me a good run last year in the big TVR.
A few others came and went in the Class over this year, so class entries were big and small, always big at Shelsley Walsh, a hill everyone wants to run.
Prescott was a blast, the car was superb as ever, the chassis geo refresh by McClurg Engineering paid dividends as ever, the engine was STRONG and even the gear changes were good (a first), and this was sort of the form for the year.
I won't go meeting by meeting, but a few mini-adventures came along...
Having only slicks made wet or damp meetings 'exciting' and we had a few of those but i managed to keep ahead of Mike in the slow Zolfe, not really the right car, a case of a great road car does not always make a good hill climb car, so often the case.
The runs at Shelsley and Loton Park came and went, the Shelsley ones with at one time 7 drivers is a very wide variety of cars, Sports libre can be translated as 'Anything goes as long as the wheels are covered' so no open single seater cars.
We had Pilbeams with 754 bhp, Audi specials with much the same or more poke Cossie turbo engined Mk2 Escort and a few other interlopers, sometimes I was on my own...
Mid season and the car broke at Shelsley.
The road spec clutch snapped a drive finger and that was my weekend done. First failure for years, and replaced by a heavy duty F&S road spec assembly that feels SO much better and the old one.
Took ages to get the box off and clutch in, box back on, all of 5 hours, but I'm getting older now for all this spanner stuff.
Middle of the year I suffered contamination in the fuel filter, the anti-surge foan is breaking down in the custon tank and blocking the filter. Simple to fix, but i have to clean the filter every race day, but cannot clean the tank out of the 1980's foam. No big deal, just part of the cleaning routine I'm used to now.
A late arrival of former British Hill climb champions Roger Moran and son Scott in the full works Skoda rally Fabia gave me a hard time , but i beat Roger once and then lost the next run by a few tenths so close.
The rest of the year was the usual self wind-up of will I win the class, 3 events to go? Then 2 events to go and finally I could not be overtaken on points.
Recent years I've felt much more competitive than ever, these class wins each year are the biggest drivers each event weekend.
Looking back on all this the year has been superb, massive fun, and not too expensive.
3 people wanted to buy the Lola (no chance yet), and I have met some great enthusiasts who wanted to know all about the car, it's history and to some 'what is that engine?'
Anyway, 6 class wins, name on a historical trophy and the car is ready for 2024 already.
I think it will not be easy next year, it never is, but consistency is key and to win, you HAVE to first finish.
I hope the following pictures will speak the 1000 words I could add, but are a bit more interesting!
I will credit the pics to Roger, Charlie and me!
Awards bash last weekend. The lady is from the MS UK.
