The Bugatti Owners' Club 2025 New Barn Cars MOT Speed Championship Season Review
- Dom Bessell
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
The New Barn Championship caters for standard and road going vehicles. A wide variety of manufactures are put to the test, from Porsche's to Mazda's, Alfa Romeo's and Fiat's, the barrier to entry is the lowest you will find. As all our championships run on a handicap system, there is no way in buying your way to the top. A drivers budget is whatever they choose it to be. The uniqueness of the New Barn Championship is seeing a £800 Ford compete against a £40,000 Alfa Romeo 4C.
A low barrier to entry often sees New Barn used as a stepping stone to other championships, those like Stuart Diaper have "dipped their toes" into the sport with a season in the championship before moving onto the Midland Hill Climb Championship, however they never fly too far away, Stuart still often seen in the Membership classes at Prescott. On the flip side we have championship stalwarts, Will Gough who pilots the aforementioned 4C took part in his sixth season within the championship.
The 10 round championship has five rounds hosted at Prescott, and a further four at other hills and the traditional sprint at Curborough make up the 10 rounds of this Speed Championship. As tradition, the championship beings at Loton Park. First honors of the year went to Patrick Hadley in his VW Golf, closely followed Mike Brakes and Christopher Heritage.
Then came along a string of four home events at Prescott. The opening round of the British Hill Climb Championship supported by New Barn over this two day event. Amongst the championship run offs it was Daniel Savage and his black Mk4 Mazda MX5 to take home maximum points.
After a short break in the month of May, the New Barn Championship moved onto a double header at Prescott at the beginning of June. The newly branded Prescott Motorsport Festival put on a show for other disciplines of motorsport however on track David Hemming would prevail on day one. Heading into day two and momentum came with Ben Wilamowski, commanding his Morgan 4/4 to maximum points in round 4 of the championship.
Onto the final Prescott round till the final, round 5 saw the highest amount of entrants at a single round. 24 competitors too to the hill on the end of June Member's Meeting. In front of supporting members and family, Alex Risk in a Mazda MX5 would take the win in what would be his only round of the season. Talk about a 100% win rate... As part of the continued support of our Members in the championship, the 2025 New Barn Speed Championship contenders gather at the start line to pose for what we hope will be an annual photo. Pictured at the top of the page is Robin Gutteridge (center) and his Renault Twingo 133 along with championship contenders present on the day.
After getting rather bored of Prescott, it was time for the opposite, 4 rounds at 4 different locations. First a trip to Harewood, Christopher Heritage in a Dax Rush took maximum points. Quickly onto Shelsley, a firm favourite for those with some higher amounts of horsepower; some with maybe too much as two drivers received capped points for going too fast! That left third place Christopher Higenbottam to pick up his first "win" of the season.
Two odd tracks followed, round 7 headed to Gurston Down, as by the title you start the hill by going down it. In this short thrill the times were extremely tight. In a similar fashion to Shelsley, two drivers were caught out by the 5% handicap rule which gave honors to Mike Brakes. Into the final round of the away leg, everyone's favourite not a hill climb venue Curborough was up. The very flat "figure of eight" loop was used and allowed the drivers to test their skills without undulation. The penultimate round went the way of James Warne and the little red Fiat 500.
Onto the finale, a hard battle throughout practice put the top three on edge, all was to play for. Unfortunately only a single timed run could be held due to delays throughout the day and the daylight fading fast. Out of that single run, Christopher Higenbottam would snatch his first proper win to finish the season in style.
In the end just three points separated the top three followed by fourth and fifth positions level on points. In seventh place, Aaron Bland would come to secure an uncontested claim on the Young Drivers trophy, his name will be the first etched onto this brand new award.
Our full list of our Bugatti Owners' Club 2025 New Barn Cars MOT Speed Championship are as follows:
Overall Winner - James Warne
Expert of the Year - Mike Brakes
Novice of the Year - Daniel Savage
Young Driver of the Year - Aaron Bland
Sports Car of the Year - Christopher Heritage
2nd Sports Car - Ben Wilamowski
3rd Sports Car - John Manners
Saloon Car of the Year - Christopher Higgenbottam
2nd Saloon Car - Patrick Hadley
3rd Saloon Car - Chris Dee
Full Championship Standings can be found here
On behalf of the Bugatti Owners' Club, as the Competition Administrator I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in the New Barn Championship this year. We have seen an increase in both registered contenders and then contenders who have gone on to score a point in the championship. A wonderful nine novices joined in this year and I hope to welcome them back as "experts".
If you would like to get involved in the championship for 2026, please contact myself the Competition Administrator on comps@bugatti.co.uk You will also find us on stand at the upcoming February Race Retro event.
I look forward to welcoming you to 2026 Bugatti Owners' Club New Barn Cars MOT Speed Championship in 2026, a great congratulations to all our award winners this year.
