Fast Up Rest And Be Thankful

THE Royal Scottish Automobile Club’s National Open Hill-Climb meeting at this popular Scottish venue on the first Saturday in July was once again, this year, very well supported, with a large number of interesting entries, and an equally large number of spectators. In spite of some very fast climbs by David Good, in his Cooper (54.55 sec.), and Arthur Owen in his Formula 1 Cooper (56.22 sec.), that well known and polished exponent of the art, David Boshier-Jones in his Cooper once again took f.t.d., twice lowering his own standing record for the hill, his best run and the new record being 52.05 sec. Incidents during the day were few and fortunately not serious. Bill Mackay of Glasgow’s Hillhead Automobile Company Racing Team suffered a collapsed magnesium wheel on the lightweight racing T.V.R., damaging the car but not himself, indeed he was racing the following day at Charterhall in the Ecurie Ecosse D-type and Hillhead’s ex-Gammon Lola. Patsy Burt succeeded in bending the brand new nose of her F.2 Cooper when she touched the banking on the top hairpin, but carried on for her second run after a little enthusiastic work with a hammer. The engine of Veitch’s Cooper-J.A.P. unfortunately packed up with a puff of white smoke just below Stone Bridge on his second run. The other T.V.R. Climax also entered by the Hillhead team, who are Scottish Distributors for this versatile little coupe, was very well driven by J. Baird and with full road equipment, including a full tank and spare wheel, was only point one five of a second slower than the fastest Lotus Elite present. This must be considered a very fine effort, as it was Baird’s first time on the hill. Norman Barclay was unfortunate this year as the Fisher-Jag, which he drove with practically no body was losing power at Stone Bridge, and the very potent T.V.R. with an F.2 Climax engine was soggy below 5,000 revs, and losing more and more clutch as Norman tried to keep the revs. up. In the “up to 1,500 c.c.” class for sports cars, won by Ray Fielding in the Cooper-Climax (58.40), a very polished drive was shown by P. Bailey in his Lotus in 59.94 sec. A. Paladini in the Lotus 7A appeared to find the gear-change difficult, but made beautiful noises with his engine. A. D. Clark in his Sprite made a nice climb, but could not catch the Sprite lent to R. G. Mickle by the Hillhead Racing Team, which went up in 77.89 sec. The two Lotus 7s entered by Robin Galloway, the local Lotus agent, were immaculately turned out, and performed very well, and the Austin Special of J. B. Mason, sporting a Ford engine, made no second run for gearbox reasons. Class 7 was a runaway win for Josh Randles in his Cooper-Monaco in 60.54 sec. Class 8, won by A. McCracken (Jaguar, 65.74 sec.), was distinguished by an immaculate drive by McCosh in his equally immaculate 4 1/2-litre Bentley (70.57 sec.), and the incredibly multi-coloured shirt of A. T. Norton. Ritchie’s Ferrari-Jaguar was disappointingly slow.

The big racing car class was unusually well represented, being won by Owen, who had brought his F.1 Cooper from the Channel Islands, from Jim Berry’s E.R.A. and A. R. Bateman’s F.1 Connaught. The E.R.A. R4D making its usual magnificent noises, and Bateman still feeling his way with the very powerful Syracuse Connaught.

The ten fastest championship contenders then did two final runs, and it was on these two runs that ” Bosh ” twice broke his own standing record, his two runs being 52.78 and 52.05 sec., respectively. The record previously stood at 52.92.

The largest engine present was that of R. M. Bateman’s Cadillac Special (5 1/2 litres); an excellent commentary was given by Graham Gauld, marshalling, etc., was highly efficient, the rein held off, and a thoroughly enjoyable day’s sport was bad by all.

Results

Class 1 – Racing cars up to 500 c.c.: T.G.F. Wilson (Cooper-Norton) 64.34 sec.
Class 2 – Racing cars up to 1,100 c.c.: D. Boshier-Jones (Cooper) 53.19 sec.
Class 3 – Racing cars up to 1,500 c.c.: R.W. Phillips (Fairley-Climax(s)) 56.81 sec.
Class 4 & 5 – Racing cars over 1,500 c.c.: A. Owen (Cooper F.1) 56.79 sec.
Class 6 – Sports cars up to 1,500 c.c.: R. Feilding (Cooper) 58.40 sec.
Class 7 – Sports cars up to 2,000 c.c.: J. Randles (Cooper-Monaco) 60.54 sec.
Class 8 – Sports cars over 2,000 c.c.: A. McCracken (XK150S) 65.47 sec.
R.A.C. British Hill-Climb Championship – D. Boshier-Jones (Cooper) 52.05 sec.