Capacity crowd watches Spollon stand alone

Bruce Spollon bagged yet another victory for ERA R8C at the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s annual Prescott hillclimb. The major meeting in its speed event calendar drew a huge entry, and one of the biggest crowds ever seen at the Gloucestershire hill packed in to see the action.

Spollon sliced more than a second from his best time of the 2002 event to take FTD at 42.14sec and outpace last year’s winner James Baxter. The Frazer Nash single-seater driver could not match his sub-43sec climb from a year earlier and accepted defeat at the hands of an ERA for the second time in a month. However, Baxter’s energetic handling of his 1934 car was rewarded with a trophy for fastest time by a pre-war car.

Trevor John claimed the vintage car award with a climb in 44.74sec in his AC/GN Cognac, while the top Edwardian was Richard Scaldwell’s Sunbeam Indianapolis; that success backed up his Mallory Park race win of two weeks earlier.

The only notable incident befell David Barker, who was ejected from his 1930 Delage when it hit the bank at Orchard. He escaped unscathed and walked to the ambulance.