Mid July saw the British Hill Climbing championship contenders arrive on the island from the previous round in Jersey.

We set the hill up on the Friday evening, roping off spectator areas, numbering pit bays, etc. This is the major problem with using a public road, but that being said it does offer a different challenge to a permanent course. Saturday dawned bright and sunny with just a little wind off the sea to cool things down. I must admit that by the time I arrived most competitors had already arrived and walked the course. However, the scrutineers soon surrounded the Imp and gave it a clean bill of health. The British contingent made a wonderful sight, which I must admit I spent too much time looking at with a lot of interest in ‘set up’ and tyres.

My practice run was quite uneventful – just find any grip and checking out the handling of the car. No major changes to the car had been carried out apart from a camber change on the front and a minor change in the tracking, so everything was as it should be. To cut a long story short the big ‘top ten’ cars put down a lot of rubber which helped our grip levels no end. The result was a 40.7 sec run, my final run up the hill in the Imp and also my favourite photo of my exploits. Interestingly enough I dug out some photos of when the chaps from Practical Classics ran the car up the hill for the first time with a so-called Demon engine and good driver. Their time was over 51 secs on a dry track. The moral of this is by constantly developing the car, small suspension changes and engine changes, not big expensive parts necessarily, but small tweaks, you can always find time.

I did not compete on August Bank Holiday as Chris did not get back from holiday until the Friday morning. I felt it was unfair to land on his doorstep, so my next event would be Alderney.

Everybody on Guernsey had me very excited about the sprint and hill climbing on Alderney. It is not good looking for diagrams or maps of the course. I tried to acquire maps from John Symes at the MSA, no luck at all. Oh well, I will have to wait and see if it is as good as the hype. As it happened, I was in the middle of a contract when I was due to be away, so it was straight from work to Gatwick to catch the last flight out on the Wednesday evening to be ready to fly to Alderney on the Thursday. Chris had left the car at the docks on the Monday evening to be shipped across with the other competitors taking part. This is not as straightforward as it might seem because Alderney does not have a loading ramp, therefore, each vehicle and trailer is craned on board as hold cargo. The worrying thing is that nothing is tied down, so in theory a major pile up could occur on board!

Thursday was a clear day, but very windy. Now I don’t mind flying, but a Trilander and strong wind does not go very well together in my book, especially when the engine I was next to started smoking and had oil trickling down the undercarriage. The runway could not arrive soon enough for me. My humorous comment for the day was if we had a hire car for the weekend, little did I realise the High Street was a ten minute walk from the airport and the harbour another ten minutes from the High Street.

Friday dawned cold, but dry with dampness in the air. The sprint course is interesting in as much as it crosses a level crossing between a fast left-hander and tightening right, but at least there is some run off areas. We were allowed two practice runs and as many timed runs as time permitted. However, this was academic as a sidecar outfit had a nasty shunt with the outfit rolling onto the driver. As the hospital is very small and services limited the event was cancelled early, as sufficient medical cover could not be guaranteed.

Saturday was a completely different day. It rained bucket loads all day. However, the same rule applied – two practice runs and as many timed runs as you could fit in. The hill climb is interesting as well as scenic. A long sweeping left-hander follows the start with a quick right followed by a left, right S bend and a long straight with a blind brow.

We had not done any fast corners in the Imp so it would be interesting to find out what was going to happen, especially on a wet surface. What a surprise! It went exactly where it was pointed with a certain amount of poise and even put the power down well. However, it was definitely a power course and this is what we have been lacking. The Mini’s cleared off and left us standing, despite 80mph being attained over the finishing line. We did our two practice runs with no problem and learnt the course with both Chris’s and my times coming down nicely. I made a real effort on my third timed run and set a time for Chris to match, but with the weather deteriorating, we called it a day and went marshalling.

Was Alderney worth doing? The answer was certainly Yes. Had the sprint run gone according to plan we could have had eight runs that day and some people had eight runs up the hill climb the following day, potential sixteen runs for £160, including ferry crossing for the car from Guernsey. You make your mind up if that is good value.

The Imp has now been sold in England for historic rallying, which is nice to think it will be seen at local events. However, it was unique on Guernsey with a lot of people interested in our ‘David and Goliath’ battles up the hill. We finally took ten seconds off the best time achieved by the practical classic people when they ran it up the hill – no mean feat, but time moves on.

At the end of last year, Chris and I bought a Jedi. This is the car that won the Honda Championship in the late nineties with James Pickford at the wheel. I knew it had been for sale for a period of time, but came upon the advert on a karting site. I knew the owner from his karting days and knew he had some wins in the car, so I thought it might be worth a ‘phone call. I was in luck. Mark Fell still had the car and yes, it was for sale with or without spares. A trip to Cumbria one Saturday was very worthwhile with the purchase completed. A very tidy car and car load of spares was on its way back down the M6 towards Kent.

On arrival at my lock up, an inventory was made of the spares and they were sorted out into boxes of associated parts. The car was checked over more thoroughly and the set up jigs cleaned and tried on the car. All seemed to be in order, as a double check I had arranged to put the car on corner weight gauges and do a set up check just to have a benchmark to return to in case we decided to race the car in the future. This double check reassured me that the car was square and was what it appeared to be – what a relief!

A date was booked in October to go to Bruntingthorpe to shake the car down where we should not hit anything solid. Chris came over the day prior; we made a seat for him and got prepared. English weather in October can be unpredictable. It didn’t let us down! Did it rain? It poured down all the way up there, while we were there and most of the way home. However, after our time on the track, we knew the engine was OK; it had six gears and went most of the time in a straight line. With standing water everywhere and streams running across the track on the gradients very little was proved except how fragile it was. A harmless spin by me broke a rose joint on the rear suspension, so minor repairs were required.

During the winter, the car was a little neglected due to the pressures of work, but come spring we all feel a little more motivated. The engine was installed with the minor oil leak now cured, brake fluid changed, etc, some ‘guestimated’ hill climb settings were put on the suspension, gearing sorted for a lower top speed and we were ready to go.

I put an entry in for the B19 shakedown sprint at North weald only to find it had apparently gone astray in the post. No spare entries for the sprint at North Weald, therefore no running before the Guernsey hill climb on Easter Monday.

After what seemed like a mammoth ferry crossing, I arrived in Guernsey just before Easter. The car was off loaded into Chris’ garage together with most of the spares. Good Friday and Easter Saturday was spent cleaning and making minor adjustments, during which time Chris, against my advice, decided to wash the seat belts. However, he didn’t mark them so we spent ages in and out of the car getting them set correctly again, (I think he was practicing emergency escapes!).

Easter Sunday morning was spent setting up the hill with spectator ropes, bales, etc all needing to be put in place before the event. It is a busy time. A chilled out afternoon always makes things seem better. Easter Monday morning didn’t bode well weather wise - damp, misty, cold and not very nice at all. We even put the gazebo in the van because rain was promised. We unloaded the car, removed the tools and wheels from the van, and proceeded to park the van in the allocated parking area some way from the pits. This was to prove a problem later in the day. The wheels were changed for Jedi’s super lightweight rims with Avon’s latest hill climb slicks mounted on them, the car scrutineered and we were ready to go. We had elected to swap positions in the running order. It was felt beneficial for Chris to do the first run in order to scrub tyres and do a general check as to brakes, handling, etc. This he did very well with nothing-untoward happening – a big sigh of relief was heard! Amazingly enough his shakedown was only one tenth of a second slower than the Imp had ever gone. It was a taster of what was to come. My first run was quite uneventful. A learning curve and getting back in the swing of it after no motor sport for six months, but a thirty-six second run was not too bad for practice.

First timed runs saw us both in the thirty fives after some adjustments, both to the car and driving style with my best for the day being a very low thirty five and Chris being slightly shy of that,

Despite having the incorrect spring rates and lacking mechanical grip on the rear, progress was made and it was not a bad starting point considering it was an unknown concept to use and Yes, I did take a front wing off on an overshoot nearly up the slip road.

To summarise it shows a lot of potential. However, I have agreed to run a Formula Ford for this year for a friend. This will mean missing some of the rounds. However, I feel the hill record will be within reach with some more development and warmer weather. It is currently only 2.5 seconds away, which should be within reach.