Martin Groves British Hill Climb Champion

[mcb666]

Willem Toet won the first round, Roger Moran the second.

Martin Groves won the championship.

The chicane proved exciting with Martin coming to an almost standstill at the tyres on the exit and having to nudge some to continue his run. Willem took a less than subtle approach to the cones and launched one skywards before continuing by booting the throttle and leaving the biggest and longest tyre marks seen this year on the hills. Wild thing!

Willem and Roger now share second, Mike Dean close behind, Paul Ranson on the way for a championship number.

A special mention goes to Paul Ranson who shares the effort it takes to dual drive the car that wins the British Championship. We travelled with Paul and the car for the Northern Ireland Craigantlet round. 6:00 Belfast, 5pm Dudley (today). Very delighted and very honoured to be sharing in the experience. (Very).

Some unshaven bloke in a big white 7.5t lorry kept passing us at what must have been 90mph and then following us for miles. The Force was with him! There is more information at the usual places. Willem will post a report on my (!) website www.2T4T.co.uk tommorow and the results will appear on www.top12runoff.co.uk.

Congratulations to Martin Groves. Truly worthy British Hill Climb Champion and all round nice bloke.

Regards and very tired, (did I say the right thing readers???). No body else had....

Richard & Georgia

[Stuart Hill]

Thx for that Richard and a VERY WELL-DONE to Martin.

The results speak for themselves, a truly superb season from an outstanding driver.

For those of you that have not been fortunate enough to see this sport from up close, PLEASE, beg, borrow or buy one of Richard's dvds with the on-board footage. Trust me, you will be suitably impressed by the speed!!

Truly worthy British Hill Climb Champion and all round nice bloke.

Nuff said.

[Woolley]

Many congratulations, Martin. An awesome year where the competition is not exactly lacking either. The championship is well deserved, and the manner of winning - both in and out of the car - has been exemplary.

The fight for second is well and truly on, though. There's plenty of excitement still to be had, notwithstanding a champion who's focus can now be on the outright records.

[b1ackcr0w]

Top Banana Mr G. Well Done.

Half of being a "champion" is putting in consistant performances, the other half is about conduct and accepting success with dignity. I think Martin has proved to be a great champion in both respects this year. It'll be nice to see him stamp his authority on the title for the rest of the season.

Not to mention, the desperate scrabble for Nos 2 to 10 is getting interesting.

Oh, and apparently there's some interest in some obscure class record on some dodgy old venue out in the sticks near Brum, anybody know anything about that?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Martin Groves has now emulated Adam Fleetwood's record of clinching the title as early as the Craigantlet round in August. Now his next target is to add some additional points to the already yawning gap back to second!

Martin's approach to his first new hill for NINE years was to give it a go and give it a go he did. His first qualifying run was good enough for third and in the first run-off he was second fastest all the way up the hill. Second qualifying was a bit different! He was a tad too quick into the temporary chicane before Mays Crossing and had to manouvre out. However with only 12 contenders left running due to various mechanical and scenic problems all he had to do was get to the top to be 'in it to win it'. However this meant he was first on the hill and from this position he again proved to be equal to the task. His time to the split was only beaten by round winner Roger Moran, thanks in no small measure to Willem Toet's 'bull in a china shop' approach to the chicane!

Could this be the first of many British Hillclimb Championships for Martin Groves? I for one hope so.

[pilbeam buddy]

Congrats to grovesy from all at team moose racing stunning performances all season while we have all stolen points of each other grovesy was off and gone.
With only 8 run offs left still plenty of twists in the final numbered positions to go . the fight for 2nd possibly the closest battle yet.
how bright is the future ? who'd like to edge there bets for 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
we have our ideas (course T.M.R NOT BIASED)
mention to ralf (a.k.a dumb,aka wills mason)who pit crewed for team moose in ireland last weekend.stirling work and very entertaining in bangor sat night
nuff said ralf(I COULD BE PUSHED FOR FURTHER INFO,maybe on www.teammooseracing.com in my next update)
regards moose.
p.s sorry mcb666 had camera on board for the runs on sat but kept forgetting to turn it off ,could be some interesting footage after the runs though,so tape ran out ops.i wasn,t the only one though.

[mcb666]

Willem Toet is a clear winner. He and Martin Elsmore managed to record all thier practice runs and all the competetive runs using 17 minutes of tape on the bullet camera. I have not watched the Moose/Moran footage but Willems is awesomely quick.

McB

[wi11iamm]

Originally Posted by pilbeam buddy

Congrats to grovesy from all at team moose racing stunning performances all season while we have all stolen points of each other grovesy was off and gone.
With only 8 run offs left still plenty of twists in the final numbered positions to go . the fight for 2nd possibly the closest battle yet.
how bright is the future ? who'd like to edge there bets for 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
we have our ideas (course T.M.R NOT BIASED)
mention to ralf (a.k.a dumb,aka wills mason)who pit crewed for team moose in ireland last weekend.stirling work and very entertaining in bangor sat night
nuff said ralf(I COULD BE PUSHED FOR FURTHER INFO,maybe on www.teammooseracing.com in my next update)
regards moose.
p.s sorry mcb666 had camera on board for the runs on sat but kept forgetting to turn it off ,could be some interesting footage after the runs though,so tape ran out ops.i wasn,t the only one though.

Cheers Moose...thanks for the trip e.t.c.

Was excellent night in bangor. Think you might have to leave the info of the site as the material may not be appropriate for younger audiences. HAHA

[Fireblade]

Originally Posted by b1ackcr0w

Oh, and apparently there's some interest in some obscure class record on some dodgy old venue out in the sticks near Brum, anybody know anything about that?

What, Curborough?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by Fireblade

What, Curborough?

You mean 'The Bog Hole'?