Hi Hersh,
Good to see you're interested in the the UK Hill Climb series - here are a few details to give an introduction - no doubt a fellow competitor will enlighten you further in due course.
Firstly, the hill climbs are as they sound, you start at one point and drive to another which is generally at least 100m higher than the start. Most uk climbs are on private roads, often the long winding drives to stately homes which gives spectators a great view and good photo opportunities. ALL events are strictly controlled by the Motor Sports Association (MSA) and each venue will have it's own venue license. This governs specifics about start/finish position and also number of marshall points, straw bales, safety fencing etc etc etc.
Events are usually organised by Motor Clubs which run/manage the event under the careful/helpful eye of the MSA.
All vehicles are scrutineered before practice for both safety and classification.
Some people take out special insurance for these competetive events, which can be quite reasonable as cars run one by one in sequence, so mistakes are usually due to driver error (RED MIST!!) Personally we don't, preferring instead to drive to perhaps 9/10ths most of the time.
You nearly always get a wide range of cars ranging from small comapacts with 50-60bhp, up to Custom built single seaters which are often fitted with ex formula 1 engines developing 600/700?bhp - AWESOME!!
We also venture to the Isle-Of-Man (aka TT Race fame) where they are far more loving of motorsport in that they regularly close sections of road for speed/hill climb events. Over there, there is the added bonus that once 'out of town', there are NO speed restrictions (providing you are sensible about it) so the 5km across the moutain road can give some great driving and handling experience. We have some excellent 'in-car' footage from many of these events and I will hopefully post some soon.
As a club (GTD-40 Car Club), we do not get too serious with the competition as we all want to have fun and develop the 40's further. Having said that though, we are no snails either and are often holding our own against many favoured classes (Porsche / Ferrari) etc, especially on the longer/steeper climb's where power counts.
Hope this gives an insight
regards
Paul Thompson
[ December 04, 2001: Message edited by: P Thompson ]