Harewood 6th June 2009

Saturday 6th June saw the Porsche Club Great Britain Speed Championship at the UK’s longest hill climb at Harewood in Yorkshire. It appeared that the unseasonably wet and cold weather followed us from Wiscombe with heavy rain overnight and into the morning. As the day progressed however, the rain eased off in time for some dry timed runs in the afternoon on this challenging and exciting hill. Fifteen PCGB drivers entered this round and, after starting on a difficult, slippery surface, they all whittled their times down in the afternoon to levels approaching that of our previous warmer and drier visits to Harewood.

Six drivers entered Class P4 at Harewood with a tightly fought battle over the day for second and third place between Stuart Maclean (924) and David Pattison (924S). On each run David gave away just hundredths of a second against Stuart to eventually finish in third with a fastest time of 71.03 seconds. After some incredibly consistent driving in his final runs Stuart was left with a 0.34 second advantage for second place. Also displaying the same disciplined and consistent driving in his final runs, Graham Rose (924S) increased his points lead at Harewood to finally finish with a fastest time of 69.10 seconds for first place in P4.
Class P3 was well supported at Harewood with five drivers entered and offering yet more close and exciting competition. Just over three seconds separated all the P3 drivers with the final, fastest three only decided in the very last run. Tim Barber (911SC) finished his day with a fastest time of 68.46 seconds for third place while Ian Wadsworth’s (911 Carrera 3.0) impressively consistent improvements over the day left him in second place with a 0.40 second advantage over Tim. It was an incredibly close competition between Ian and David Hilton (911E 3.0) for first place with David fractionally bettering Ian’s time on almost every run. In the end though, just a 0.09 second advantage gave David class honours for P3 in his final run of 67.97 seconds.