Mini at Prescott

MINI AT PRESCOTT

Mini Festival at Prescott Speed Hillclimb

Saturday 16 August 2025

Full timing downloaded from resultsman.co.uk

A departure from our usual diet of short oval and circuit racing was provided by the all-Mini event hosted by the Bugatti Owners’ Club at their historic home venue, Prescott Speed Hillclimb, in Gloucestershire. Inspired, organised and very well promoted by Pete Flanagan (the man behind Facebook’s popular and addictive “The Sporting Minis” page) this event had been attracting massive interest and enthusiasm among Mini owners, racers and enthusiasts since it was first announced. When the day finally arrived, it lived up to everyone’s expectations, and more!

To be honest, we’ve always considered Hillclimbing one of the most appealing branches of motorsport, but somehow we’ve just never managed to find the time between other events. Apart from one visit to a British Championship round at Harewood, many years ago now, our Hillclimb experiences were concentrated on the local events of our youth, Valence (held on the drive of a school near Westerham in Kent) and Bodiam (through the hop fields adjoining Bodiam Castle in East Sussex). The opportunity to visit the scenic and atmospheric Prescott was therefore too good to miss.

Promoted as a “Mini Festival”, the day was based around a competitive Hillclimb event catering for all varieties of Mini, but had plenty of other attractions, both on and off the challenging 1,127-yard Prescott hill. The competitive side of the event drew 74 entries, of which 69 appeared on the day (with a number of shared cars meaning there were 57 actual competing cars), but there was also a category for “non-competitive” runs up the hill (untimed, without full safety gear required) that added another 39 cars and 40 drivers to the spectacle. Then there were a handful of historic exhibits in the paddock, some of which were able to take demo runs on the hill, and lots of interesting Minis dotted around the public parking area, although the expected Mini-only area hadn’t materialised. Nothing to do with Minis, but nonetheless fascinating, were demo runs from a group of “Cyclekarts”, home-built vintage-styled 200cc Honda-powered creations that are part of a growing movement on both sides of the Atlantic, although somehow we’d never heard of them before.

All the competitors, and non-competition entries, had the chance of five runs up the hill; two practice runs before lunch, two timed runs in the afternoon counting towards the awards, and a bonus third run which didn’t officially count, but did prove a point in some cases. The organisation ran like clockwork, with the action starting promptly at 8.30 and finishing comfortably before the target 5 pm. Helpfully, nearly all the time, cars arrived at the start in programme order, and all but a couple reached the top under their own power, with only one serious mishap all day.

Class 1, for ROAD GOING MINIS brought out ten drivers in eight cars, with some very nice modified cars included despite their road-going status. Top of the class was regular Mini Libre racer Huw Turner, in his original Stuart Hayman-built 1380 powered car, with Simon Cox in his 1380 Mini Ritz and Nik Aveyard, first car up the hill in each run, third in his 1275GT, also 1380cc. Edward Westbury’s slightly later Rover Mini, Robert Sinclair, sharing Nik Aveyard’s car, Paul Holloway’s 1275GT, Terence Cox, sharing the “Ritz”, John McQuillan’s 1293 Cooper and Dominic Moreland’s 1275 Cooper completed the class.

Class 2, with 11 starters, was for PRE-1969 ROAD GOING MINIS and this was won by Matt Clarke’s deceptively quick 1460cc Austin Se7en. The class unfortunately lost four times Miglia champion Aaron Smith and Piers Thynne when their shared car bent a valve in Piers’ second practice run; Aaron and Piers’ first practice times remained the second and third fastest all day. Second in the runs that counted though was Steven Mourphy, ahead of Adam Crowton’s shared car, Marc Wojtanowksi, Paul Morcom, Tony Salter’s Riley Elf, Graham Carter, Christopher Bentley-Jones, Phil Skipp and Steve Downey, with the class completed by Steven Powell, who also had to retire after his two practice runs.

Some of the most eye-catching cars in the event appeared in Class 3, MODIFIED MINIS. Eight cars and nine drivers appeared, although sadly we lost the Somerset-based car of Tony and Ben Bonfield, one of several in the field with the popular BMW bike twin-cam head conversions on their A Series engines, when a front hub broke in Ben’s first practice, taking him into the tyre wall at the Esses – the only damaging off course incident all day. Topping the times when it counted was Ray Cunningham, probably Ireland’s best-known Mini specialist and engine builder, who’d travelled from Athenry with his Galway Mini Centre/Mini Spares backed car. Ray was in the top three overall on every run, splitting the quick Maguire Minis running in a later class to be the quickest steel-shelled car in the official results. Second in class was Paul Talbot’s twin-cam 1275GT and Paul actually turned the two quickest times in the class, albeit in practice and the non-counting third run, where his extremely impressive time of 47.95 was the only sub-48 second run anyone turned all day.

Third in class went to Neil Turner in another screaming twin cam car, with Julian Harber’s Clubman fourth, former Mini Libre champion Peter Crewes fifth in his Britax-liveried car, Kark Dickinson sixth and David West seventh, all of these cars being a real treat to see in action.

Class 4, with fifteen entries, was the busiest of the day, for PRE-1969 MODIFIED MINIS, which captured some of the FIA Appendix K racers as well as many for which Hillclimbing was their native environment. Top of the class was Mini Seven Racing Club President Bill Sollis, in his historic racer, ahead of Simon Goodliff in a replica of the Vita team 1964 Targa Florio entry, the original shell from that car being on display as the fearsome Buick V8, rear-engined FWD creation. Prolific Autograss, Libre and Historic racer Dan Lewis took third, ahead of the man primarily responsible for the event, Pete Flanagan. The shared car of Jim George and Justina Cameron took the next two places, ahead of Nicholas Topliss and another familiar ex-Autograss name, Malc Fitzpatrick. Andrew Clarke, Ellie Birchenough, Matthew Goodrich, Jason Jesty, Ian Bankhurst, Carole Nicholls and Colin Marshall completed the class, once again with every car being truly individual and beautifully presented.

Class 5 was for RALLY MINIS, defined as those with a valid Motorsport UK Rally logbook. After a late switch from the previous class, the shared car of Mark and Shane Gamble took first and second places, with Mark just beating regular driver Shane. Third was Ian Clare’s colourful 1293 Wolseley Hornet, ahead of Clive Godfrey’s works-liveried Cooper S, Isle of Man visitor Adrian Kermode’s 8-port 1275GT and Colin McDowell, who retired after his first run in what we think was the only 850 entered.

The next class was for BMW MINIS, with four cars and six drivers entered, although the R53 of Aaron Bland and Sophia McCall had a third driver running in the non-competitive class – and unfortunately succumbed to overheating later in the day. The shared R53 of Jake Wheeler and John Denman topped the class, ahead of Aaron Bland, Allan Macfarlane’s JCW, Sophia McCall and Martyn Timberlake.

Listed in a class of his own, as SPORTS LIBRE MINIS was regular single-seater Hillclimber Richard Matossian in a Maguire Mini powered by a Carter Imp-based 1237cc engine. He set a competitive best time of 51.02, although the official results lumped him into the last competitive class of the day, for competitors in the DOWNTON MOTOR CLUB SPEED CHAMPIONSHIP, where his time put him fourth of the ten entries. Two very quick Maguire Minis headed this class, with Derek Kessell holding fastest time of the day after each run, until Paul Talbot’s third run heroics, which didn’t count! Derek’s second run time of 48.28 put him just ahead of Ray Cunningham in the overall results, while second in the Downton class, Northern Ireland’s Ian Howard with a very eye-catching Maguire, was a fraction behind to claim second in class and third overall. The BMW Minis of John Wells and Wayne Blacker took third and fourth ahead of the 1380 Minis of James Edmonds and Kevin Taylor’s splendid tribute to Mini tuning and racing legend Steve Harris. The road doing 1380 of Stuart Lugger was next ahead of Matt Wells’ 1330cc Austin Se7en and Marc Barlow’s road-going 1300.

The non-competition entries that followed the timed cars on each run provided plenty to watch, with some quite spirited driving and a great variety of standard and modified Minis, ranging from several BMW variants to a standard Mini Mayfair, via a Mini Marcos and turbo Mini Van.

Demo runs featured Pete Flanagan driving the Richard Longman 1978 British Saloon Car Championship winning 1275GT and Dutch visitor Jeroen Booij, who’s brought over his newly restored Mini Marcos, the only British car to finish the 1966 Le Mans 24 hours! And then there were the Cyclekarts, with six cars styled as three variants of Austin 7s, Alvis Firebird, Delage (or “Delittle!”) and even an Auto Union Type C, although these were only a small sample of the varied machinery built so far for this non-competitive fun formula, originally an import from California.

The whole day had been a superb success and we very much hope that the Bugatti Owners’ Club and Prescott will be able to work with the Mini fraternity to make this an annual event – it has all the potential to become a truly unmissable date in the calendar!