Shelsley Walsh Report

Report from James Thacker.

A healthy number of 17 cars  were entered at the most historic most historic speed venue of them all, Shelsley Walsh , Worcestershire on May 4th even though unfortunately it clashed with our Anglesey event during the May Day bank holiday week end. 

The mercurial Ben Rolls, rather  Verstappen  like,  took a comfortable win by a country mile of  just over three seconds from the rest of the field with a very impressive time of 35.21 in his immaculate class 4  (non road going) 1380cc Sebring Sprite

Behind him there were six  cars (many of them in the popular Modified Road Going class) covered by a mere 1.4 seconds. These were, James Thacker 38.53 A/H.  Mk 1 Sprite (1330cc ), Steve Jackman 38.80 (the prolific SF writer) MGF, Jamie Stevens 39.80 MGF, and 5th equal, on 39.91, Steve  Luscombe and John Payne in their 1380c. MG Midgets, and 7th place John Egan 39.93 in his K series engined MG Midget. I think this was his first time at Shelsley in the car so this is very commendable.

This was all very close hillclimbing for the runners up, with most people improving as the day progressed after a slightly slippery track in the early morning.

A special mention should be made of the number of T types entered. The T racing championship might have sadly stopped for various reasons,  but it was great to see five people  entered at Shelsley in the MG class in TC’s and Howard Harman’s special bodied TC in the adjacent Classic class. The James and Tim Burmester TC sadly did not appear. However the three supercharged TC’s of Keith Benningfield, Jeff Marsden and David Morris looked great, sounded good and were very impressive with their speed up the hill. 

Keith won the unofficial TC class with a 40.75 (he has been under 40 seconds in the past) from Jeff Marsden 40.90 and David Morris 43.59.