Menzies off to a champion start at Loton Park
Wallace Menzies was the toast of the
British Hillclimb Championship at
Loton Park on Sunday when he won both championship run-offs to take a perfect score as the 2021 season got under way.
The reigning champion sat out 2020 completely when COVID-19 cancelled the championship, but showed he had lost none of his spark during the enforced lay-off, and pulled out two stunning runs up the Shropshire hill to make the perfect start to his title defence.
In the first run-off, ever-changing conditions as the track continued to dry played into Menzies’s hands, with his Gould the last car to run. A blistering climb in 44.11s edged Alex Summers’s DJ Firestorm by a third of a second, with six-time champion Scott Moran making it two Goulds in the top three with a 45.17s climb.
“You had to drive it like it was full dry,” said Menzies, despite the track still harbouring some slightly damp patches under the trees. “We were concerned about rain coming because the temperature had dropped.” His 44.11s was a great run and put down an emphatic early marker that the man from Alloa would like to keep number 1 on his car.
Sean Gould never made it into the first run-off after spinning his Gould at Keepers in the opening class runs. Damage was limited to a wing endplate and he was back out for the afternoon seeking to salvage some early points. “Just pushing on too much,” said Gould of the spin. Richard Spedding never got going at all, with an electrical gremlin leaving his team unable to get his GWR Raptor running.
At the end of the afternoon, dark rain clouds circled the parkland venue, but the track stayed dry for the second run-off. Once again, Menzies was the fastest qualifier from the class runs, and therefore the last to go in what would be the final run of a long day.
The pressure was on because immediately before Menzies, hill record holder Gould had put down a 44.27s. But Menzies dug deep and turned in a stunning run in 43.55s to score an emphatic victory and get within a quarter of a second of Gould’s 2019 record. To seal second place in the second run-off was some compensation for Gould after his earlier disappointment.
Summers had a strong weekend to start a serious title bid with a second and a third. In the late afternoon second run-off, the Cosworth-powered DJ Firestorm was 0.05s behind Gould and 0.22s up on the charging Will Hall, who was an excellent fourth in both run-offs in his Force.
Moran backed up his earlier third with fifth, while Trevor Willis, fifth in the morning despite having to come out of the throttle during a big slide at Keepers, dropped to sixth with a run that included a moment at Triangle. With seventh and eighth places, the flying Eynon Price headed the smaller-engined cars with two typically committed runs in his 1600cc Force.
“That’s a cracking start to the season,” said Menzies. “But we were very lucky today as running later in the batch helped with the weather in the morning. I’m just happy it stayed dry for everybody this afternoon and that made it a bit fairer.
The boys worked really hard to get the car where it is. It’s not always like that so we’ll take it when it comes and enjoy it!”