Dry or wet, tricky Forrestburn tests the Northern Speed drivers
Last updated 19:46, Thursday, 28 August 2008
ROUND eight of the TJ Services Northern Speed championship took place at Forrestburn near Glasgow on Sunday.
Forrestburn is a notoriously tricky and fast hill where many drivers have come to grief over the years.
It also has some of the worst weather seen at a motorsport event with high winds and driving rain even in the middle of summer.
Last Sunday was no exception, although the rain did stop before the event and the track dried out as the morning went on thanks to the extremely high winds. Not quite the sunny day those who stayed in Cumbria enjoyed!
In the modified saloons – as the Scots call them – Ant Lomas got the better of Robert McGillivray to win the class despite an early off that saw him come to a halt some distance from the track.
In the Marque road sports cars Martin Stott was on top form, blitzing the class. Kevin Hamilton came fifth in his MX5 some seconds down.
Maryport’s favourite rally driver Stephen Palmer was out in the road-going saloon class (up to 1400cc) in his mighty Micra but couldn’t match the Honda Civic that set a new record and ended up third.
Mike Hunter got to grips with the course very well and took nearly half a second off the class record in his Metro in modified saloons to win the class.
Malcolm McKay and Chris Boyd were involved in their usual tussle for honours in the bike engined sports cars with Malcolm coming out on top but being pipped for class honours by one of the local specialists. Malcolm was second overall among the Wigton entrants.
Terry Coleman took the over-1700cc modified sports car class from Harry Moody, both of whom had an incident-free day.
Angus Buchan who is one of the Wigton championship contenders, took the win in the bike-engined Sports Libre class, but could only manage third amongst the Wigton runners. Paul Bowness was second in the same class.
In the larger capacity Sports Libre class Peter Keen was second in his Vindicator, which gave him some problems due to the size of the car and the tightness of the track.
Peter Garforth came in seventh in the racing car class after having several minor offs throughout the day. He was also the fastest of the Wigton runners.
The overall course record was smashed at the event by new Scottish hillclimb champion Jonathon Rarity.
Colin Sutherland got close to the class record in his Spitfire on the pre-1965 sports car class and took the class honours by a big margin.
Ronald Ireland was out in the classic GT car category but retired early from the event with car trouble.
The next event is at Harewood in Yorkshire on September 20 and may be the event where the overall championship is decided.
The Cumbria Classic Weekend was held for the 20th time earlier this month and proved to be a huge success.
A full entry of cars set out from Penrith Rugby Club for the Pennine Classic Tour, heading as far north as Hadrian’s Wall for lunch and then returning to Penrith for tea.
The weather proved to be much better than forecast and all the crews enjoyed the event. Bob and Mary Smith had masterminded a really great event.
The weather was also kind to the Cumbria Classic Show at Dalemain on the Sunday. A record 440 entries were received and the crowds were also reaching record size.
The spectators were entertained by autotests, sporting trials and 4x4 trials while the featured cars were the Jaguar XK, Land Rover and Spridget. Solway Jaguar put on a superb display of XK-engined cars.
The Car of the Show was Stuart Oliver’s Jaguar E type which was voted the top car by the other class award winners.
The standard of cars gets higher every year but the great thing is that most of them are used regularly.
There was a strong motorsport display from the organising Wigton MC as part of national motorsport week and the Go Motorsport Campaign. This resulted in a flood of new members.
