A big crowd was on hand to enjoy Bugatti Owners Club’s recent Prescott Historique meeting, expanded this year to a two-day event. With the Hill enjoying largely fine weather across the weekend, spectators were treated to some excellent competition along with some amazing demonstration runs.
Across the two days, the event hosted some of the most competitive series in British Hillclimbing, among them the Bugatti Owners’ Club’s own Fassi Classic Speed Championship. Class 1 of the Championship produced back-to-back wins for Alistair Clark in his Mark 2 Triumph Vitesse ahead of the Escort RS1600 on Saturday and Graham Hill’s Mini Cooper S on Sunday.
In Class 2, it was David Fripp who took his Fiat 124 Spider to first place on Saturday with Stephen Akers taking top honours on Sunday in his Series 1 Lotus Elan. Oliver Slater took his Ginetta G15 to second place on the opening day with Ben Cross claiming the runner up spot on day 2 in his MG Midget.
Ben Fisher took his Mallock MK11 to victory in Class 3 on Saturday while Jeremy Rivers Fletcher claimed top honours in his Triumph Special single seater on Sunday. Class 4, meanwhile, was dominated by the Talbot Sunbeam Ti of Clive Berry.
The Bert Hadley Memorial Championship is devoted to the diverse array of Austin Seven based machines and Colin Danks claimed a brace of wins in his Austin Seven Ulster.
The Paul Matty Lotus Championship, meanwhile, features both race cars and roadgoing sports cars produced by the Colin Chapman founded marque. Saturday saw David Hampton claimed top spot in his Formula Atlantic specification Lotus 69 while the Sunday win went to Anthony Wallen in his F3 Lotus 69.
There were a trio of fabulous ERAs on hand with Ben Fidler setting the pace on both days in his D Type. In the Bugatti Williams Monaco Trophy Cars Handicap, Edward Townsend took top place on Saturday in his Type 35B while Tim Dutton claimed the honours on Sunday is his Type 44.
The TR Register Triumph Speed Championship produced a battle of the TR7 V8s with Alistair Flack finishing ahead of Steve Small on Saturday, while Alistair headed home Larry Jerome Croft on Sunday.
The Healey Sport series saw Richard Mason set fastest time on Saturday in his Austin Healey 3000Mk2 while Maxwell Shand topped the Sunday times in his Austin Healey Sprite.
There were two wins out of two for the Cooper Mark 11 of Richard Robarts in the 500 Owners Association category for Historic Formula Three cars.
The Bugatti Owners Club Handicap for members and allcomers provided two wins in Class 1 for David Saxl and his immaculate Riley TT Sprite while David Rose took Class 2 honours in his Lotus 18 Formula Junior car and Marc Wojtanowski took the Sunday honours in his Mini Cooper.
Class 3 saw Les Buck take Saturday victory in his Pringett Mistrale Formula Ford car while on Sunday top place went to the Lotus 51 of Mike Henney. Victory in Class 4 went to Tom Jeffrey and his Alpine GTALM.
The Allard Owners’ Club contenders were in action on Sunday only and it was Mark Butterworth who came back from a first run fail in his J2 to take the win with his second run time. Second place went to James Smith driving a J1 ahead of the K1 of Joe Langley.
While the timed runs produced some great action, the demonstration runs also offered a feast of sights and sounds. Among the cars to take to the hill were the legendary BRM V16 and the BRM P160 V12 car raced by Nike Lauda during the 1973 Grand Prix season, these two BRMs brought along by marque specialists Hall and Hall were joined by the Rover BRM gas turbine car, which was on static display.
Other cars to take to the hill included Jedi Chassis #1, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Jedi’s launch. ERA GP1, one of the last two chassis built by the legendary marque also went up the hill.
The Cooper T90, the last model produced by Charles and John Cooper and subsequently used in Formula 5000 also appeared on the hill adding to what was a very special weekend.
Competition action returns to the Bugatti Owners’ Club on June 8th and 9th with the Midsummer Meeting. Full details of this and other forthcoming events and activities at Prescott can be found at prescotthillclimb.co.uk.
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