BHC TITLE RACE HEADS FOR FINAL ROUNDS
The battle between Wallace Menzies and Alex Summers for this year’s British Hillclimb Championship is set to go down to the wire over the two remaining events at Prescott this weekend and at Loton Park at the end of September.
Menzies, the reigning champion, has a five-point advantage over Summers, who was champion in 2015. However, both drivers are now dropping scores and will count their best 24 scores from the 29 events due to run.
Once dropped scores are factored in, Summers is really only two points behind as he has three seven-point scores to drop as well as one eight, while Menzies has four eights to drop. Such has been their consistency this season, that both drivers will probably end the season dropping points scored for third-place runoff finishes.
Summers knows that the two points he is adrift of Menzies are critical, and he needs to beat his rival in at least two of the remaining four championship runoffs to have a chance of taking the title.
Summers said: “Wallace is two points ahead now on dropped scores. If I have another shocker like Shelsley Walsh, then that’s the championship over for me. We just got the tyre strategy wrong. I need four decent runoffs and I think we have a good car.”
A critical factor may be the bonus point available for anyone bettering the outright hill record standing at the start of each event. During the points’ scoring runoffs both Summers (nine) and Menzies (eight) have claimed bonus points this year and it is possible that their intense competition will take them under the record at either Prescott or Loton Park or both.