The Return of Events to Prescott Hill
One of the key areas which has been examined closely recently is the return of events to Prescott and how achievable it is to provide a safe and socially distant environment for our Members, Competitors and Marshals to return to. A three stage plan has now been agreed in principal by Council, which will allow the risks to be mitigated on an incremental basis and reviewed throughout the entire process.
Stage 1 - Drive Thru Events
The first stage of events will be drive thru style events. This will see road registered and road legal cars driven to the hill undertake hill runs in a none competitive manner. This will allow for social distancing procedures to be implemented for hill marshalling, paddock marshalling, hill control and radio logs, registration, track and trace, recovery, medical provision, toilets and catering.
Stage 2 - Track Days and Drivers Schools
The next stage is a reintroduction of semi-competitive events such as track days and drivers schools. In addition to the above measures which are already in place, this second stage will allow us to implement procedures to cover paddock management, rescue, start line, assembly and possibly scrutineering.
Stage 3 - Competition
This is the final stage and will see us return to club level competition, learning all of the lessons from stage 1 and stage 2. Social distancing will remain in place and some elements of the events will be different to usual. This final phase will establish methodology for Motorsport UK Officials, such as Clerks, Scrutineers, Timekeepers and Stewards.
In light of this staged return to competition, Council has taken a further decision that Prescott will not host any rounds of the British Hill Climb Championship this year as following consultation with various Senior Officials, it does not believe it can provide a suitably high standard and compliant event that would be appropriate for the BHC. The BHC have clearly been notified of this decision and we look forward to welcoming them back in 2021.
However, assuming the progress is good and inline with the above plan, we hope to be able to provide Club Members and BOC Championship contenders with 5 competiti
ve hill climbs at Prescott in the late summer and early autumn. This means that we also hope to still run the New Barn and Henny's Championships this year.
As we progress through the above three stages we will be in contact regularly with all involved parties, so please keep an eye out for communications which will follow to Members, Competitors, Marshals, Residents and Supporters.
