2025 Speed Championship Loton Park Hillclimb Round 7 - 2nd August
Your fellow Members and Speed Championship contenders headed for Loton Park near Shrewsbury on Saturday 2nd August.
We arrived early in the morning, on a beautiful sunny and dry day, at the picturesque Loton Park Speed Hill Climb course. The hillclimb track is a narrow winding sinuous tarmac strip wending its way through the trees and ponds within Sir Micheal Leightons Deer Park. Fortunately for us there were no deer wandering on the track, although plenty of evidence underfoot they had been there recently, however there may have been a few “Oh Dears!” during the course of the day.
In the AMOC speed class 7, competitors entered:
Two race prepared GT4 Vantages: Peter House, green and Tom Whittaker white. Tim Price completed the Vantage team with his standard V12. DB2/4s were represented by Tim Stamper in his rocketship Mk I and Peter Watts in shiny Green standard Mk II. Mark Chandler joined us with his vintage Riley, Felix Stamper in his Z4 roadster and newcomer, Victoria Watts, in a bright white Porsche 944.
Some family competition was predicted!
The first practice run was treated with caution by those who had not competed at Loton before. Valuable advice shared by the experienced AMOC competitors was welcomed and saved some of us from potential embarrassment at the last “hidden” corner “Museum”.
Scrutineering was satisfactorily passed by all - let the fun commence.
Loton track is just 1,349 metres long but packed with corners. From the start line, there is a shallow dip then 2nd gear up to a 90 degree left hander, accelerate hard again before another 90 degree left. We then wend our way down a narrow section with a sharp kink to left, and sweeping downhill to `triangle”, an acute 60 degree right hand corner, with spectators aligned on the grass bank watching for any unintended excitement.
I found you needed to keep well to the left, and after braking hard in a 1950s car, there is time to balance the car, just clip the late apex and then accelerate, just as the tyres begin to lose their grip - smoke and squealing rubber delight the spectators, too much and there is a hard tyre wall to the left and a pond to the right.
No time to take a breath, a quick right and left, then the long uphill section called “Cedar straight,” but it has a gentle kink in the middle, maximum speed is achieved here before again hard braking and down change to sharper than 90 degrees left hand “fallow” curve, back on the power through the dip and up to the brow of the hill. Did you brake before you saw the 70 degree Museum corner, I hope so, else it’s too late. Then as fast as you can to the finish line. All over in less than 80 seconds, probably quicker than it took to read that!
So how did we do: - two practices and two timed runs:
Gaydon cars
Congratulations to Peter House, fastest of the day at 61.25 seconds, very closely followed by Tom Whittaker at 61.85, Tim Price in third position at 65.00 astonishingly quick for a standard road car and his first year in the championship.
The older cars
Tim Stamper, in a car that is 50 years older than the Gaydon cars 66.13 second – Ok he has a few small mods, and he did have to slow down after too much enthusiasm on practice 2 at fallow corner. He slightly fell of the track and ripped the inside wall of front tyre whilst regaining the tarmac - Oh Dear!
Peter Watts continued improvement through the day - the best time was 80.5 seconds – slow, my excuse I only have 140 BHP!
Mark Chandler – Vintage Riley unfortunately had a magneto issue during practice so was not able to proceed with the timed runs - Oh Dear!
The Others!
Felix Stamper’s Z4 Roadster was an ideal car for the day, roof down, the weight was transferred rearwards, and it was so much cooler - he recorded a best of 74.43 seconds.
Victoria Watts – her first competitive event and at the start she said she entered just for fun, but the competitive bug influences us all, by the timed runs she was looking to reduce the cars weight, and remembered the steel sunroof on 944 can be demounted, and in a twinkle there it was left by the side of the paddock. Reduced weight and lower centre of gravity all in one go. Did it give results - her best time 80.22 seconds, yes that is 0.28 seconds quicker than her dad - Oh Dear! I mean congratulations!!
Another great day in the AMOC speed championship, Stunning Location, Great Friends, Great Variety of cars. Click
HERE to see the photo album.
Our thanks to Hagley and District Light Car Club who ran the event and to Anne Reed for setting and managing the handicaps and scoring.
Peter Watts
Speed Championship Results after 7 Rounds:
