Eighteen PCGB Speed Championship drivers braved a rain soaked course at Harewood hill climb last Sunday for a day of close competition and more than a few ‘offs’ between the first and last corner of the course. A spell of dry weather followed by continuous rain on Sunday ensured that this 1600 yard course was pretty treacherous in places but that did not inhibit some very skilful and competitive driving.

It was another excellent turnout for Class P4 with eight drivers competing in a fairly evenly spread competition. Driving the distinctive orange 924S he shares with son Ben, Simon Butterworth finished Harewood in 78.26 seconds for third place. It was a close fight for second and first in P4 between the 924 driven by Stuart Maclean and the 924S of Graham Rose. In the final run, after the rain had slackened off, Stuart put in a fastest time of 76.93 seconds, just under half a second behind Graham Rose’s class winning time of 76.45 seconds.

It was also a good turnout for Class P3 with five drivers competing at Harewood. Despite the challenges of a long and very slippery course David Hilton (3.0 litre 911) still put in some consistent times to finish in third place in 76.19 seconds. Like the previous round at Loton, first and second place in P3 developed into an exciting contest between Tim Barber (911SC) and Ian Wadsworth (3.0 litre 911) with Tim conceding in the final run with just 0.18 seconds between them for a fastest time of 73.76 seconds. Ian Wadsworth is proving to be very much on form this season with a class winning time of 73.58 seconds at Harewood giving Ian a hat trick of wins in three outing this year.

It was father and son competing for points in a shared car (911 3.2) in Class P2 at Harewood with Geraint Evans and Ben Evans very close in times throughout the day. It was the final run that very clearly decided the outcome however, with Geraint finishing with a fastest time of 77.20 while Ben Evans put in a fine drive to finish the day with a remarkable 2.22 second margin over Geraint for first place in 74.98 seconds.

Three drivers entered Class P1 at Harewood with Pedro Moriyon making his championship debut in a standard production model 993. Despite the relatively daunting conditions at his very first competitive outing Pedro completed the runs without any dramas for a fastest time of 80.84 seconds and third place. Karl Lupton’s (Supercharged 944) first timed run in the afternoon nearly ended badly after an off at ‘Orchard Corner’ but he settled down for the remaining runs for second place in 79.34 seconds on his final run. Simon Wilson’s first timed run proved to be his fastest of the day and also earned him the fastest Porsche on the day in his supercharged 924S as he claimed first place for P1 in 73.43 seconds.