DOWN THE PUB
Age: 60 Lives: Stockton, Worcestershire Chevron hillclimber
He’s a Shelsley local “I live three miles from Shelsley Walsh and I’ve been competing there for 20 years. I first went there in 1957 when I was tiny and we used to come here in the days of Chris Cramer in the 1970s. I helped Graham Hickman, the engine builder, for a number of years and when I was 40 I decided to have a go.”
He has two Chevrons “I’ve had the B25 single-seater for 15 years now. My B19 spent many years in America and was then sent back to Vin and Helen Malkie at Chevron in the UK for major chassis work. The car was half done at the factory and the owner decided to sell it, so I bought it two years ago. I hope I’ve got plenty more years of competing ahead of me.”
The B19 is a new addition “I’ve only run it a couple of times since the rebuild was finished. We went right through it with Vin and Helen and without their help I couldn’t have done it. I’ve no plan to race it, not at my age! If I get it wrong on the hills, I can blame the nut behind the wheel. I’m reasonably good at hillclimbing and if I went on the circuits I’d probably be useless. I did drive Silverstone Grand Prix circuit a couple of years ago and it is as wide as Shelsley is long. I didn’t know where to put the car.”
He took FTD at Shelsley “Taking Fastest Time of the Day on the Saturday of the Shelsley Classic in July was a milestone in my motorsport history. It was only the second time I’d driven the car in competition, it was a week after my 60th birthday so to get FTD on my home hill was very special. That was my seventh FTD at Shelsley.”
He loves Shelsley “Shelsley is all about the atmosphere. It’s the oldest venue in the world still using the same course and everyone is so friendly. It is unique. But there are some other great hills out there and Wiscombe Park is one of them. We also go into Europe and I’m the outright record holder at the Hauenstein hillclimb in Germany near Bamberg. It’s a 2.6-mile hill with a lot of history, although it has been shortened in recent times. I’ve been five or six times.”