HAVING taken time away from the sport during recent months to support his partner and the birth of their son, Weymouth driver Geoff Blake returned to speed hillclimbing at the Woolbridge Motor Club organised British Championship event at Wiscombe Park.

The first day of the two-day meeting saw wet track conditions and Geoff’s father Graham take a third-place finish in the Non Road-going division of the Wiscombe Park Championship class in his two litre Vauxhall-powered Westfield.

Due to the diverse specification of the cars accommodated in this class (saloons, sports cars and single-seater racing cars) the results were calculated by use of bogey times rather than the actual times achieved by the individual drivers and Graham had to give best to the class winner Jan Yeo driving a Westfield SEi previously campaigned by the Blake duo and Rod/Hayley Thorne.

The following day with Blake junior present, and track conditions which allowed the use of soft compound slick tyres, the story was different. After two circumspect practice runs Geoff Blake displayed his pace when required to defeat (again on bogey) two single-seater racing cars in the hands of Ben Wheeler (Empire Evo 2) who won the Saturday event outright and Shillingstone driver Andrew Forsyth (OMS CF04).

The Downton Motor Club class (predominantly for Minis) saw Bere Regis driver Stephen Wareham take his 1330cc Morris Mini to second and third-placed finishes with a best climb of 48.28 seconds whilst Weymouth’s Mini enthusiast and ex-circuit racer John Kirby continued to develop his one litre turbo-charged Clubman with a best time of 49.78 seconds.