Shelsley Walsh starts with high speed action

Tracey Cameron and her 600cc Nemesis

This weekend sees the first speed hill climb meeting of the year taking place at Shelsley Walsh, near Worcester, and it has attracted a full house of top drivers and their cars from across the UK.

2012 sees the 50^th anniversary of British Women Racing Drivers Club, formed in 1962 to promote and support women in all forms of motorsport, and they have recently proudly announced that young Scottish member Susie Wolff has been appointed as a development driver for the Williams F1 Team.

On a local level, Tracey Cameron, a company secretary from Malvern will be making her debut in a single seat racing car and commented: “I have driven a 3-wheel Morgan in the past, but this machine is very different indeed, it is a 600cc Honda-powered Nemesis with wings and slick tyres and I will be aiming to do a sub-40 second run.”

Two championship contenders entered with a new car this weekend are father and son, Charles and James Williams, of Claverley, near Wolverhampton, who are competing in a Force PC racing car.

Charles commented: “I have competed at Shelsley in an F3 Dallara in the past, but this machine is very different indeed, it is very light and powered by a highly tuned 1585cc Suzuki Hayabusa engine and we will be aiming for a 26 second run if skill and the conditions allow!”

Shelsley Walsh will be hosting a special class for competitors from the BWRDC this weekend, and other clubs invited to attend including, ‘Flat Head’ historic cars, Aston Martin, and entrants in the Paul Matty Sports Cars Lotus Championship.

The event is a round of the TTC Group Midland Hill Climb Championship and attracts a wide variety of competition classes for saloon, sports and racing cars, with the action starting at 9.30am each day.

Practice and qualifying takes place on Saturday, with timed competition runs on Sunday, together with a separate ‘run off’ for the twelve fastest championship contenders, which takes place after the morning session and at the end of the afternoon competition runs.

Shelsley Walsh is run by the Midland Automobile Club which enjoys the sponsorship of Midlands prestige car dealerships Stratstone, who provide course cars for each event and Brightwells Auctioneers and Valuers of Leominster, one of the oldest salerooms in the country.