Five 7Oaks competitors set off a various times on Saturday 5th June for our annual pilgrimage to Harewood in Yorkshire for one of the best hills in the calendar. The Webber party detoured on route for Ben to find Robin Hood's oak tree in Sherwood Forest, having found it, a pose was too much too resist!

This important excursion over we all started to converge on the hill to walk it before most of us retired to the Harewood Arms.

Next morning dawned showery and all day runs oscillated between damp and nearly dry for most of us. There is a ten round local championship run at this hill and the locals have really got it under their belt, times improving every year. We did our best to keep the 7Oaks flag flying, but all of us would have spent the run back down the A1 thinking 'another run' would have done it. Roy (Nichols), Adrian (Miles) and I populated 1400-2000cc road going, a class of 14.

Nearly all ran Pug 205s, including Adrian who brought the ex Jon and Simon Miles, ex Gordon Franks one along. This his first hill and a run in the (standard!) car got him off the bottom in 13th after a whopping 10 second improvement in run 3, over run 1 at 84.36. Run 2 finding him 4 wheels off and a damaged wheel at the crucial and deceptive final bend after which Jon was reminding him what he'd told him when they walked it. Like father like son?

Current Speed League Champion Roy Nichols made his best time of 70.97 to take 6th amongst the pug sandwich .

I got it down to 69.78 with the first signs of misfire that would bite hard at Abingdon. A second best ever time for me but only good enough for 4th. Still after a big spin in practice I was pleased to run at all.

Next class up Jon in the Evo got it down to 66.97 but had to settle for third

Gareth Richardson, whose Elan is still on  the mend after spinning a bearing at the Welsh weekend last year was still using his 340R, an Elise with no clothes on, he deserves a medal for driving it up there, as he did to Snetterton again in the partial rain. First time at Harewood and he found he was off on the grass on his second timed run but ended up getting it down to 71.48 to take a well earned 4th slot in the 'Elise / kit class'.

A big thank you to www.whatnonegatives.com for all the Harewood photos foc (if they get this plug in the mag /web site). A great site for motorsport photos.