WITH the championship season coming to a climax many drivers had expectations of two days of speed hill climbing at Wiscombe Park when they could add to their points total.

Having benefitted from ideal weather, and therefore track conditions during the Saturday meeting, heavy rain early the following morning destroyed any hopes of drivers performing well in the Wiscombe Park Championship as contestants score points when their times are compared with the class record for the category in which they are competing.

Some drivers were undeterred by the deep low depression which drenched many south west counties and one such driver was Andrew Forsyth who displayed equal ability on both a dry track and one with standing water.

The OMS CF04 pilot from Shillingstone challenged with his Suzuki powered single-seater racer for the prestigious Fastest Time of the Day in the Saturday event with a best climb of 38.92 seconds but was obliged to give best to Rod Thorne and event winner Ben Wheeler in his Empire Evo 2. Wheeler, having started the season in the road-going divisions, has rapidly come to terms with his light-weight 1551cc Suzuki-powered machine to take the premier award with a climb of 37.21 seconds in only his fifth event with the car.

Garage proprietor Rod Thorne battled against the Empire driver in his Rover V8 powered Pilbeam MP43 sports racer but the 5.0 litre machine, although powerful, lacked the agile handling of the smaller and significantly lighter single-seater. Thorne however secured second overall and won the over 1800cc Sports Libre category.

The extremely wet conditions on Sunday morning saw a number of drivers make the decision to withdraw from competition but Andrew Forsyth fitted wet weather tyres to his OMS and ventured on to the track to do battle against the elements as well as the stopwatch.

In treacherous track conditions a time of 48.64 seconds was achieved which, while comfortably the fastest time achieved by a racing car, compared with Fastest Time of the Day posted by Jack Ellis in a four wheel drive Subaru Impreza of 45.37 seconds. Such were the conditions.

Dorchester’s Graham Vingoe at the wheel of his Renault Clio 182 Cup revelled in the wet conditions come Sunday finishing second to the Mitsubishi Lancer GRS of Yeovil avionics systems engineer Simon Neve.

The former Caterham driver finished 1.9 seconds in arrears of Neve and ahead of the Clio 172 Cup of Michael Hall.

The championship class of the Downton Engineering Works Social club, which caters predominantly for Minis saw John Kirby from Weymouth secure a third in class with his turbo-charged one-litre Mini Clubman.

The retired marine engineer and former circuit racer closed to within six hundredths of a second of runner-up Lee Kessell in his 1275 cc Austin Mini.