Historics on the Hill

LYDDEN HILL CIRCUIT

"HISTORICS ON THE HILL"

20 July 2025

The Sunday part of Lydden Hill Motorsport Club’s double header meeting was promoted as one of Lydden’s showpiece events of the year, “Historics on the Hill”. This has become an established fixture over recent years, based around the Historic Racing Drivers’ Club categories. This year the HRDC content had been dropped (whether because of a slightly disappointing turnout last year or because of HRDC’s recent change of ownership we don’t know) but there was no direct replacement with mainstream historic racing categories, other than a very welcome visit from the 500 Owners’ Association. The addition of the Mary Grinham Memorial Races should have had a strong local appeal though, and the rest of the programme was made up with a continuation of Saturday’s programme for the Pickup Trucks and 2CVs.

With just seven races and three qualifying sessions on the final timetable it wasn’t such a full day as Saturday, but Lydden’s noise restrictions mean that all circuit action on a Sunday must be squeezed in between 10.30 am and 4 pm, so there was plenty to fill the time, especially as, after being lucky with the weather on Saturday, Sunday turned from a wet start to extremely wet, with only the last two or three races seeing the day brightening up. Off track there was plenty to see, with discounted entry for classic car owners meaning there was a bit of browsing to be done in the car parks, although there wasn’t much scope for formal displays or on-track demos.

Sunday’s race action started with the MARY GRINHAM MEMORIAL RACE. When this was announced following the sad passing earlier this year of Mary, a regular competitor over many years, most recently featuring in the Fastest Mini in the World races at Brands Hatch, we thought it would attract lots of support, with eligibility left open to any roughly pre-1990 racing saloons. It was very disappointing when the entry list was finally published with only six cars; they all turned up, but Joe Eastwood’s Retro Rallycross Metro didn’t appear on track. Luckily two of them were able to put on a great show in the two races; Bill Richards prepared Mary’s own 8-port powered Maguire Mini specially for the event, while former Lydden regular from the SEMSEC era, Nigel Craig, returned with his Duratec engined Mk2 Escort. Nigel led both races most of the way, but both times Bill closed in to challenge. In the very wet first race Bill pulled off a superb pass round the outside of the North Bend hairpin, and then held off Nigel to take the win. On a dry track second time out Bill only got close enough to challenge on the last lap and couldn’t quite pull it off, so Nigel won that one. Imp expert Col Rooney, in his very original Special Saloon car that saw action at Mondello Park in the 70s, was an impressive third fastest in the wet qualifying, and the even wetter first race, but a little off the pace of the bigger engined cars in the dry second race. Dave Howarth, in Bill Richards’ second, steel-shelled 8-port Mini, came alive in the second race to take third after a battle with Peter Wilks, who had a good run in his Peugeot 106 that used to see action in the Castle Combe Hot Hatch class, but managed few laps in qualifying or the first race, with gear selection problems.

Lydden had the idea of putting together a grid of the SHP-built Mk1 Escort styled RSR spaceframe machines, several of which have appeared in the Modified Ford series, but only three entered and one turned up; local Rallycross ace Tristan Ovenden with his 2.5 Duratec version, as recently modelled by Scalextric. Tristan raced with the memorial race grid and, despite an early dice with Nigel Craig in the second race, finished well ahead of the others.

A real treat was the appearance of the 500 OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, who turned out thirteen immaculately prepared examples of the original Formula 3 cars, dating from between 1948 and 1954. Entries included local man Tony Skelton, who’d celebrated his 90^th birthday the day before the meeting. Although a long time Rallycross driver before switching to saloon racing, Tony had actually started his career in F3 in the mid-fifties, and had managed to buy back and restore his original Martin-Norton. The 500s qualified in damp conditions, the session getting cut short when Tony Skelton spun backwards onto the top of an infield bank, and they got the worst of the weather with a torrential downpour as their first heat was restarted after a red flag. That was caused by a coming together between Tony Skelton and Chas Reynolds’ Kieft, which led to the Kieft getting stuck on the slippery North Bend kerb, madly spinning its wheels. Up front, Alex Wilson’s Martin-Norton had qualified on pole and led the first race throughout, chased in the worsening conditions by Richard Kelly’s Cooper Mk5-Norton, Ewan Cameron’s Cooper Mk6-JAP and Harry Leston, one of two grandsons of 500cc legend Les Leston in the field, with a Cooper Mk4-JAP. Chris Wilson’s Cooper Mk2, possibly the oldest car in the field, beat Ollie Leston’s Martin-Norton for fifth and then came Tony Skelton, Jonathan Morris’ Waye, Chris Reynolds, allowed to restart after the stoppage, and Douglas McLay’s Cooper Mk8. Simon Hewes retired his Cooper Mk8, while Hamish Cameron-Eveleigh’s Cooper Mk8-JAP and Fin Cameron’s Joe Potts Special broke down on the warm-up laps.

The second race was on a virtually dry track, with the sun putting in an appearance at the end of the weekend’s action. All thirteen cars made it out, although Simon Hewes didn’t complete a lap. Alex Wilson led all the way again, but this time his closest chaser was Hamish Cameron-Eveleigh. An early battle for third featured Richard Kelly, Ewan Cameron, Ollie and Harry Leston, Tony Skelton and Chas Reynolds, but the Kieft dropped out with a suspension failure, Ewan Cameron dropped back and Ollie Leston stopped in the closing stages. Richard Kelly came in third, with Tony Skelton eventually lapped in fourth ahead of Harry Leston, Fin Cameron, Chris Wilson and Jonathan Morris. A struggling Ewan Cameron ended up two laps down ahead of Douglas McLay, but all the 500 drivers had put on the brilliant display in these charismatic cars, with their very distinctive sound and smell.

The PICKUP TRUCKS, after qualifying and their first race on Saturday, had their second 20-lap heat and 25-lap final on Sunday. Light rain was falling for the morning race, with the rolling start headed away by Allen Cooper and Dale Gent, the top six places being inverted from Saturday’s second set of qualifying times. Dale held the early lead but Allen soon moved up to take over, chased by Ryan Hadfield and Mark Willis, with Jonathan Hadfield doing an excellent job of holding off the rest of the field. David O’Regan managed to extract himself from the battle and gradually closed on the leaders, taking fourth from Mark as Allen held on to win from Dale and Ryan. It took a lot longer for anyone else to get past Jonathan, but eventually he ran wide out of Devil’s Elbow and Eric Boulton took sixth, just losing the place on the last lap to Aaron Thompson, while Chris Brockhurst, Michael Smith, Jonathan Hadfield and Tom Hutchins were all close behind. James Goldstraw had a moment that dropped him to the back of the field, and retired towards the end, while Chris Land was an early retirement.

After lunch, the final lined up in points order from the heats, but again with the top six inverted, putting David O’Regan and Eric Boulton at the front. The race started in torrential rain, with Mark Willis taking the lead and Eric Boulton, Dale Gent, David O’Regan and Ryan Hadfield tucked into his spray. After five laps the ninth-placed Michael Smith ended up in the gravel at Devil’s Elbow, bringing out the red flag. Ten minutes later the rain had stopped, and the sun was coming out as Mark Willis led the rolling restart through the water splash at Pilgrims. Mark held on for a few laps before Eric Boulton hit the front, with Mark holding off Dale Gent and David O’Regan for second, while Aaron Thompson, from ninth on the restart, made good progress up to fifth. As the track began to dry though, Aaron’s distinctive red truck was flying, picking off those ahead until entering lap 18 of the 25 he was lined up to outbrake Eric for the lead into Pilgrims. There was then no stopping Aaron as he came home a delighted winner from Eric, Mark, Dale, Ryan Hadfield and David O’Regan. Chris Land and Tom Hutchins dropped back in the next places and James Goldstraw ended up a lap down, while Allen Cooper rejoined two laps down with his door falling off, and Chris Brockhurst and Jonathan Hadfield both retired.

The CLASSIC 2CV RACING CLUB encourage sharing of cars, not just in their endurance races, so although the same 17 car field lined up as on Saturday, five of them had different drivers in for their 10-minute qualifying session, in steady rain, and a single 20-minute race, with the sun by now having come out, although the track was still fairly wet. Championship leader Sebastian Jones-White qualified on pole, but a lightning start from the fourth row saw Nick Crispin join a four-abreast run down to the first corner and although Andrew Bull led out of Pilgrims and through Chessons, by the end of the first lap Nick was in front, and there he stayed, pulling out a huge, by 2CV standards, three second gap by the end as he was chased all the way by Andrew and Sebastian. Martin Riman worked his way to the front of the pack disputing fourth place and then held the place from Steve Walford, taking over from Julie today, and Ethan Sparrow. Simon Turner dropped back from an early third place to hold off Brian Heery, Glen Oswin and David O’Keeffe for seventh, and then came Chris Yates, Sam Archer and Robert Dawson, with Martin Sunderland, Laurence Broadhurst and Darren Pauling lapped at the end and Matthew Hollis retiring in the closing stages.