CHATEAU IMPNEY REPORT
Paul lawrence enjoyed thec hate au imp ne y experience
The fourth running of the Chateau Impney hillclimb revival was a runaway success as a big crowd roasted in soaring temperatures. The pace on the halfmile hill was equally hot as Malcolm Thorne’s F2 Lotus 35 sliced half a second from the year-old record.
The second generation of hillclimbs in the manicured grounds of the Worcestershire hotel continues to deliver on all fronts. But at the core of this event is a very serious hillclimb competition with over 200 entries across 18 classes. In keeping with the venue’s original motorsport era, the entry is limited to pre-1968 cars and the depth of quality in the field is outstanding.
Eventually, Thorne’s twin-cam single-seater took fastest time of the day in 38.86s, more than a second clear of his pursuers and well under Jack Woodhouse’s previous mark of 39.33s. In just four annual events on the resurfaced and extended hill, the outright record has been trimmed by more than three-and-ahalf seconds from the 42.42s set in 2015.
What makes Chateau Impney stand out among similar events is the standard of the entry and level of competition within each class. No class victory comes easy and each class has a representative entry: from Edwardian monsters to pre-’68 racing cars over 1500cc.
The Spollon family, owners of the venue and committed competitors, and their team clearly work very hard to get the entry right and they most certainly pulled it off again this year.
The only exception to the 1967 cut-off was a class of Group A, B and WRC rally cars tackling the second of three events in the new Ralli22 speed event series. Young Tom Delaney led after the first runs in his Mitsubishi Evo 6, but messed up his second run as a superbly controlled run by Tony Shields (Opel Astra) took the lead in 42.90s. It all came down to the final car to run, the ex-carlos Sainz Ford Focus WRC of Dave Wright and his start wasn’t great. But Wright attacked the rest of the hill in his customary spectacular style and grabbed victory in 42.08s. It was the sixth fastest overall time of the weekend.
While the crowds sought shade and respite from 30 degree heat, there was much to keep them entertained for more than eight hours on Sunday. Aside from over 400 competitive runs, the sideshows included a gaggle of demo runs, a supercar display and a Hurricane fly-past to add to the sense of occasion. On Saturday afternoon a large contingent of fans cheered England’s football team to victory over Sweden via one of the event’s big screens.
It is hard to find any negatives about the event and that was the case once more last weekend. An annoying number of red flags due to dislodged floppy markers regularly interrupted the flow of the event and needs to be resolved, while rather more serious was the accident that befell the modified Ford Model T V8 of Brett Pillinger in Saturday’s second practice runs. He lost it at Raven’s Crest, the corner in front of the Chateau and charged the bank and wall protecting the VIP viewing area. Pillinger suffered thankfully minor injuries as he was ejected from the car and some onlookers had a scare. The incident curtailed practice and left some classes without a second run and a new line of large straw bales was in place for Sunday morning.
Aside from Thorne’s superb performance in the sleek 1965 Lotus 35, there were plenty of praiseworthy climbs. A week after losing out to the Kurtis Indy Cars at Brands Hatch in his Lister Jaguar, Rod Jolley switched to his Cooper T45/51 to inflict a comprehensive defeat on the front-engined monsters.
Thorne’s nearest challenger was 2016 winner Martin Jones (Brabham BT21B) and the Cheltenham driver was the only other person to break the 40s with a first run in 39.95s. But any chance of improvement was dashed when Jones spun at Raven’s Crest on his second run.
The versatile Justin Maeers forsook his beloved Parker GN pre-war machine for two newer sports-racers and took both classes 12 and 15 in his Cooper Monaco and Lola T70 Spyder respectively. Tom Walker did well to take fourth in class 15 behind David Giddens (Lotus 23B) and Ian Wright (Chaparral Mk2) after clobbering the front of his Can-am Lola T160 on the first run. Undeterred, Walker took the front body section off and attacked on his second climb.
Mark Woodhouse claimed class 13 in his Formula Junior Elva but his son Jack could not repeat his wins of 2015 and 2017. In the Brabham BT6 of John Truslove, Woodhouse junior ran wide onto the grass on his first run and elected not to take a second climb. Robin Tuluie (Menacso Pirate) and Tony Bianchi (Allard Farrallac) were among the other class winners after a tremendous weekend at this hugely successful event.