for Shelsley record

The decision by the Midland Automobile Club to resurface the world famous Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb paid off when many course records tumbled including the outright hill record which fell five times in one day at the 102 year old Worcestershire Course on Sunday 3rd June.

This included a stunning twice in two minutes, not just the once, but a second time and both occasions within one hour! Within the day, Scott Moran captured the record, lost it within two minutes to Martin Groves, regained it from Groves, lost it again to Groves within that astonishing hour but finally snatched it back in the penultimate run of the day and this time Groves could not grab it in the last run of the day.

The record went from 23.75 that stood to Groves at the start of proceedings, to 23.71, to 23.40, to 23.36, through the 22 second barrier to 22.86, then finally to 22.83. The super surface, laid by Bardon Contractors in April bore everything that was thrown at it! As a large crowd looked on, Scott Moran came of age in hillclimb terms by fighting off the superb Groves so many times, and as usual Moran handled this in his almost apologetic style. When asked how he sustained his effort throughout the day he said "Each time I knew I had to try that little bit harder".

Nine class records fell, whilst Sue Young lowered her Ladies record twice in the day. The oldest Shelsley record of all, the closed car record last set in June 1992 fell to Mike Endean who is the boss of Hillclimb Championship sponsor Nicholson McLaren. He was driving his astonishing carbon fibre four wheel drive Ford Puma that was custom built for him by multiple hillclimb championship car constructors Gould Racing of Newbury. The biggest record grabbing margin was in the unlimited modified production saloon car class by Roger Banks in the monstrous 4.2 litre twin turbo four wheel drive Audi A4 Quattro who knocked a total of 2.02 seconds off the old mark.