Matthew Ryder had one of his best ever weekends in the British Hillclimb championship when he dominated at Wiscombe Park, winning both run-offs and obliterating the existing hill record.
At the wheel of the Gould GR59 he shares with constructor Sean Gould, Ryder was unstoppable at the Devon hill and took a massive 1.2 seconds off the existing record across the course of two championship run-offs.
Alex Summers led the chase but was quick to acknowledge that he could not match the performance of Ryder, who bounced back strongly after missing the Guernsey run-offs when co-driver Sean Gould damaged the car in the first timed runs at Val des Terres.
In the first run-off on Saturday Ryder went to the start line knowing that he needed to better the hill record to out-perform Summers, who had just done a 32.94s climb in the DJ Firestorm.
Ryder’s attacking run of 32.16s brought gasps of admiration from the crowd and fellow competitors as he went well over a second under his own previous personal best.
On Sunday Ryder again ran last as the fastest qualifier, and when Summers dipped to a 32.48s Ryder knew he had to dig deep once again. But even he was amazed when the clock stopped at 31.77s, becoming the first person to climb Wiscombe in under 32s.
“I'm almost speechless,” admitted Ryder after the second run-off. “It's been a fantastic weekend, and to come away with a record as well, I'm absolutely chuffed.
But I didn't see that time coming. I just knew I had to give it everything.”
Two second places and an additional point for bettering the old hill record was a strong weekend for Summers, but he knew that Ryder was out of reach. “It's absolutely stunning what he's done,” said Summers of his rival.
Will Hall had a strong weekend and was close to the old record in the second run-off as he bagged a brace of thirds in his Gould while Wallace Menzies, Trevor Willis, Sean Gould and Dave Uren all took a share of the mid order places in the two run-offs.
Other stand-out performances included that of Paul Haimes, who got his 1300 turbo engined Gould into sixth overall on Sunday with a 33.98s, having already taken two tenths of a second off Jos Goodyear's long established class record.
Meanwhile, young Alex Coles went to his home event with the ambition of getting into the run-off and did just that to score two eighth places in the 1300t Force of Kelvin Broad. Coles was brilliantly committed on the climb and was another driver to receive a rapturous reception.
Away from the single seaters, the second Tin Top run-offs of the season delivered great competition as Scott Moran won twice in his father Roger’s Skoda Fabia R5. However, Moran had to push hard in the face of opposition from Eynon Price in his Fabia R5 and Simon Bainbridge in the SBR Chrono as well as Moran senior.
However, the weekend belonged to Ryder and when dropped scores start to come into play over the closing events of the season there will be little to separate Ryder from Summers in what is set to be a thrilling battle all the way to the title decider at the end of September at Loton Park.
Written by Paul Lawrence and published in partnership with Autosport
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