It was the disappointing news that the possible hill climb venue at Ditcham on the Sussex/Hampshire borders will proceed no further for various reasons that prompted me to put pen to paper.
One of the reasons, I gather, for not proceeding was that it is a public road and it would be subject to the speed limit.  This caused me to investigate another idea.
In 1949, the Royal Scottish Automobile Club promoted and ran a speed hill climb over a stretch of the old "Rest and Be Thankful" road.
Now if, as I suspect, most of you southern types may not be familiar with this fine Scottish road, it is located between Arrochar and Cairndow on the A83 and was constructed by the Sappers during the Mid 18^th Century as part of the plan for the pacification of the Highlands.  The road takes its name form the stone set at the summit where it bids travellers to "Rest and Be Thankful"!
The old road stretched through Glen Croe for some eight miles and rises to an altitude 860 feet above sea level and lies between Ben Arthur and Ben Donich, both just under 3000 feet high.
Having competed over the course many times, we can reflect on the complete absence of Armco, straw bales and I don't even remember seeing any marshals, but I suppose they must have been there, probably sleeping after the long hike up the hill to reach their posts.  Looking up the Glen, dream like, following the road as best you could, peering through the early morning mist, it was the sort of place that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand until you were jolted back to reality by the loud bark of an exhaust and the smell of a hot engine.
I remember all sorts of cars competing there, a Martini Special (no, it wasn't on a tray and being carried by a lady wearing a short skirt on roller skates) it was a single seater, powered by a motorcycle engine (now there's a novel idea) and I believe came from Jersey!  Another non-flying bedstead thing, again bike powered and elastic band suspension, which bent alarmingly when the power was applied.  The guy driving this machine must have been a nutter!  Oh, and there was some young chap by the name of J Y Stewart driving an odd wooden car called a Marcos. He did seem to show a certain aptitude for the sport!
However the best part of all, was the return to the paddock via the new main road which had been cut into the side of the mountain.  During the summer, this road was usually full of tourists towing caravans and it was just great nipping in and out, scaring the pants off them.  Unlike today, noise really was not a problem.  So you can imagine it was wonderful to hear the various exhaust sounds echoing down the Glen.
Anyway to get back to the hill climb that may have run but for the speed limit, during the early days of the Rest and Be Thankful hill climb, many of the cars could not cope with the gradient, so they reversed up the hill!
So my solution is quite simple, how about a hill climb but only using reverse gear - that would probably keep the speed down a bit……or would that be a step backwards!

Rob Hume

Back to April's Home Page