THE highlight of the south-west’s hill climb season is the visit of the country’s premier series, the Avon Tyres/Wynn Group Motor Sports Association British Hill Climb Championship, to Wiscombe Park this weekend.

The main championship event will include two exciting run-offs for the fastest 12 championship competitors on the Sunday whilst the previous day will see a separate event for local drivers plus the practice runs for those contesting the national series.

Pre-event favourite at the East Devon venue, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary, will be reigning champion Trevor Willis.

The Worcester driver is a double champion, having also been victorious in 2012, and leads the 2018 series in his potent V8 3.2-litre twin Hayabusa-powered OMS 28 single-seater racer.

Willis will be the only driver competing at Wiscombe Park who has won the prestigious championship but that does not mean he will be unchallenged.

Leading the battle will be Wiscombe Park joint outright record holder (with Willis) Will Hall who will campaign his Force WH which is powered by a two-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine based on the engines used in the Le Mans Prototype class in the World Endurance Championship. The Stourbridge driver will have approximately 600bhp at his disposal.

Championship runner-up in 2017 was Scotsman Wallace Menzies who took his first victory at Wiscombe Park just 12 months ago and he will be keen to close the deficit to his adversaries with a good performance with his 3.5-litre Cosworth powered Gould GR59M.

Competitors will be travelling from Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands with the intent of claiming success but others will have not travelled so far and will be flying the flag for Dorset.

Among those will be Rod Thorne who will be back at the wheel of his mighty five-litre Rover V8-powered Pilbeam MP43 sports racing car.

The machine, now re-fettled following an altercation with the Wiscombe scenery early in the season, will give the Frampton garage proprietor the opportunity to gauge his performance against the best in the country.

The case will be the same for single-seater exponent Andrew Forsyth who climbs aboard his Suzuki-powered OMS CF04, although as with Thorne a good points haul in the Wiscombe Park Hill Climb Championship will also be an important target.

Graham Blake from Weymouth will lead the family effort in the Wiscombe Championship over the weekend.

Blake, who is competition secretary for event organisers the Woolbridge Motor Club, will be joined by his son Geoff, driving a Westfield SEi, and by his daughter Debbie who takes the wheel of a Peugeot 106 Rallye.

Among other local drivers will be John Kirby contesting the Downton Motor Club class which caters primarily for Mini enthusiasts. Kirby, from Weymouth, has certainly been a fan of the front-wheel-drive machines competing in different variants in numerous club motor sport disciplines as well as circuit racing.

The retired engineer will be at the wheel of his turbocharged one-litre Mini Clubman and will be joined in the Downton division by Stephen Wareham from Bere Regis in his 1330cc Morris Mini.

The national series only visits the south west once during the season so the fastest driver-car combinations can only be seen this weekend.

Although the focus of attention will be on these ultimate machines, there will be a supporting cast of saloon and sports cars including vintage Austin Sevens, Porsches and Aston Martin.

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