European Hill-Climb Championship

Since our last bulletin on the European Hill-Climb Championship, two further events, Cesana Sestriere on July 26th and Freiburg on August 9th, have taken place. Barth, who had already assured himself of the title for the second successive year by winning Trento Bondone, continued to dominate the Championship with his works-entered 2-litre Porsche Prototype and won at Cesana in a new record time of 5 mm. 33.1 sec. Second place went once more to the Swiss, Herbert Muller, in the Scuderia Filipinetti 2-litre flat-eight Elva-Porsche, over 5 sec. behind the winner. The fast German exponent Anton Fischaber took third place in his Lotus 23-B.M.W., with Herbert Demetz’ 2-litre Abarth-Simca fourth, just half a second ahead of Andre Knorr’s Porsche 904. At the penultimate round at Freiburg, Barth kept up the pressure to notch his sixth successive win in the Championship, ascending in a new record time of 6 min. 40.66 sec. for the 11.2-kilometre course. Muller came even-closer to catching Barth and on one of the two ascents he got down to within 0.41 sec. of the German Champion. Third place went to another Swiss driver, Karl Foiteck, in a 4-cylinder 2-litre Lotus 23-Climax, just ahead of Fischaber. Thus Barth brought his total up to 54, but as only the best five events count he can only claim 45 points, and this allows him to discard the nine he gained with the Elva-Porsche at the first qualifying round at Rossfeld. Second overall is Herbert Muller with 25 points, whilst third place features a close battle between Anton Fischaber with 10.875 points and Heini Walter (Porsche 904) with 10.50 points. As a result of his crash at Trento Bondone, Britain’s Peter Westbury had to bring his Lotus 23-B.R.M. back to England for repairs, Westbury missing both Cesana and Freiburg, although the car will be in the last event at Sierra Montana on August 30th, where David Good will be driving.-E. L. W.