Photographing the British Hillclimb Championship Round 9 and 10 at Shelsley Walsh

Having not made it to Shelsley Walsh in 2025, I was keen to get to the British Hillclimb Championship round 9 and 10. The very hot weather of Gurston Down was replaced with decidedly wet conditions on Saturday. Sunday promised to be drier for Andrew Harbey and I.

There was a major change for competitors with resurfacing of the full 1,000 yards course. Once fully rubbered in that promised quick times in 2026, but perhaps not on a damp and occasionally drizzly day. I was there the last time the hill record was broken – three times in three runs – in 2021. Here’s Sean Gould setting off on his 22.37 run and then on his barely slower afternoon run out of Top Ess.

Top Ess

Reversing my usual practice, we headed up the hill for the morning session, planning to shoot from the start area for the afternoon. The slightly damp track might make things exciting at the exit of Top Ess. In the event, everyone was well behaved.

The morning session consists of practice runs before qualifying proper to determine championship points and Top 12 Run Off participants. We worked our way down to Bottom Ess.

Bottom Ess

With the Top 12 for the morning Round 9 settled, we moved to the area below the terraced seating above the approach to Bottom Ess. A surprising absentee from this was Alex Coles,  who had a mechanical on his qualifying run. First though some older, but still desirable machinery

The Run Off was the usual top three – but with a twist – Will Hall not only set fastest time but also broke the outright course record – beating it by 0.04 second ! What did I know ?

Paddock

For the afternoon, Andrew and I split our time between the terrace overlooking the start …

… and the paddock – which, of course, was open to wander round.

Andrew found a few minutes to talk to David Gould, father of Sean who had until a couple of hours earlier held the outright record at Shelsley. For 2026, they are sharing the first Gould built with its original Hart engine. It was the 1985 championship winning car driven by Chris Cramer- photo from Speed Climb 60.

Andrew – David Gould was stood next to the car, so I took the chance to have a chat. The engine is from 1977, making it a spritely 49 years old – still younger than many of the historic entrants !

Although it’s a simple car (from a simpler time), it has been retrofitted with launch control, but David thought it was only useful in the wet – “A driver is always quicker” to quote him ! Amazingly, it’s also only about 25kg heavier than Menzies’ car with all of its carbon fibre and modern technology. There is still a power difference, but it was a title-winning car and you wouldn’t describe it as slow.

Car design has, indeed, come on somewhat – Sean is setting low 27 second times, around 5 seconds off the fastest time this weekend – but that’s forty years progress for you!

There had been light drizzle in the air for the later qualifying runs and for Round 10 times were little slower than the earlier Run Off. That is, except for Dave Uren who knocked half a second off his earlier time to finish a superb second. Perhaps his paddock prep was just right !

British Hillclimb Championship Rounds 9

• 1^st Will Hall #3
• 2^nd Matt Ryder #1
• 3^rd Wallace Menzies #2

British Hillclimb Championship Rounds 10

• 1^st Will Hall #3
• 2^nd Dave Uren #6
• 3^rd Wallace Menzies #2

The competitors are now off to Doune, Harewood and the Channel Islands before returning to Shelsley in early August.

Photography notes

As ever, a British Hillclimb provides excellent, close-up access for spectators whether or not they are photographers. We were using a combination of 70-200mm, 24-70mm and 24-120mm zoom lenses on Nikon D850 and D780 bodies.

---