First Hill Climb Event

My first hill climb event was held at Doune hill climb also known as the king of the hills. It’s located just out side Doune near Stirling UK.
Read on to find out how it went.

The Time had come 14th April 2023 it was a friday morning we packed up motorhome ready and loaded up the car with some tools, fuel, coolant, oil and loaded it on to the trailer.

Arriving at Doune a little before lunch time finding my paddock spot for the weekend, set up the gazebo trailer and car then proceded to help with setting up for the weekend’s event.
This meant going up the hill in the recovery truck dropping of brushes, shovels, flag poles and fire extinguishers. I watched during the day the competitors arriving and setting up. The Drivers sign on was opened up for a few hours, I grabbed my license and checked and I signed on. Later we had a take away mean and a few drinks and good evening. Later that night as dark started to fall I took a walk up with track with our dog.

I was up for 7 am dressed race suite, boots, I headed over to the car with my gloves and helmet so I was there early to carry out some checks on the car and fit the timing strut, empty the boot of the tools etc.

Briefings started at 7:45am ending with the drivers briefing at 8:15. As one of the newcomers I had make myself know to the secretary of the meeting, We were taken up the hill in a car giving some do and don’ts and some tips etc.

After the sight drive up the hill I headed back to the car as I was worried in case a missed the Scrutineering as it started from 8:10am. I watched the scrutineers go about their business and then I saw one heading towards me. Crunch time will I pass? If not it’s going to be a short event.
Gordon the Chief Scrutineer was the one to check me and my car over. Easy stuff first the safety gear with no issues there he then turned to the car giving it a good going over as it’s never been seen before and only 2 comments, Thankfully only 2 small issues found. The homologation label is required to be on the inside shoulder belt not the outside who knew. A quick cross over of the shoulder belts and sorted. I also needed a sticker for my helmet which the scrutineer supplied. I said to Gordon I would swap them correctly after first run. Gordon was happy and signed the car off handing me a sticker to place visible on/in the car.

I heard the call from batch 1 (my batch) so I got in the car and made my way to the holding area. Thankfully I was quite far back in the batch.

I got the signal to move to the start, I made my way slowly to the start and coming to a stop to allow the guys to set the car up. I’m now sitting watching the red/green light. You don’t have to launch right on the change. The light changed I launched the car and heading up the hill taking it a bit easy getting to the top and finish line in one piece and a time of 77.36s. The second practice time was 73.89s, then first timed runs 73.37s and the last timed run of the day 71.33s
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday with my times improving as the day went on. Practise 74.45s followed by 71.16s and 3 timed runs 69.41s, 69.15s and lastly 69.42s. One thing I have noticed that my times were quite consistent at each stage of the hill and speed at the speed trap too.