Stunning Shelsley Walsh at its Best
David Uren won one of the most exciting days at Shelsley Walsh for many years on June 3rd when he took Best Time of Day in his Gould 3.5 V8 with a time of 23.53 seconds to take his first ever win at the 113 year old hill. Both Run Offs during the day saw some of the most committed driving ever seen at Shelsley as the fifth weekend of the 2018 British Hill Climb Championship took place. Will Hall in his Force took the win in the afternoon run off ahead of Uren by just 0.01 seconds - exemplifying what a close day of hill climbing it was.
Indeed, it was so close that Uren was named joint Man of the Meeting with Robert Kenrick who once again smashed the up to 1100cc class record, this time with a 25.08 second run in the classes before a staggering 24.96 in the Run Off. For many it was the biggest cheer they’d ever heard after a run!
For the fans new and old it was especially exciting to see Uren win the day as the car he drives holds the outright hill record on the hill when it was in the hands of Martin Groves and for the fact that only a couple of weeks ago it had a broken gearbox that needed all hands on deck to fix it. Uren’s prize was a brand new MHD AGT automatic watch worth £550 that has only been released in the last few weeks courtesy of Shelsley’s timing partner Matthew Humphries Design.
“It means so much to me to take the Best Time here today as I’ve been coming her for so many years.” Said winner Uren. “With the history
is embedded here it’s quite something to now have my name in the record books. Thank you to everyone involved, especially the marshals, who have made this weekend so wonderful not just for me, but for all the fans and spectators.”
Overall leader of the British Hill Climb Championship Trevor Willis still leads the title chase as he leaves Shelsley, but this time by one point rather than the five he had coming into the weekend following Will Hall’s hugely committed run in the afternoon that won the last Run Off by a hundredth of a second.
The next visit of the British Hill Climb cars will be on August 11th and 12th when Shelsley will also be host to the UK public debut of the Jaguar Formula E car with New Zealander Mitch Evans at the wheel during a weekend of celebrations of the world’s oldest motorsport venue that will be 113 years old - to the day - on August 12th 2018.
Pictures from to Nigel Harniman - http://www.harniman.com
