ADAM Fleetwood continued his domination of the British Hillclimb Championship with another spectacular win and a new outright hill record at Gurston Down.
The reigning champion wiped over a third of a second off his own Gurston record with a very rapid but smooth second championship run-off climb of 26.02sec.
But the day didn't go all Fleetwood's way as rain interrupted the first class runs, which also act as qualifying runs for the first of the British Championship run-offs. This meant that he, and all of the usual fancied runners, failed to qualify, so the first run-off was populated by a bevy of 'non-regulars'.
Southampton's Tom New (Pilbeam MP88 V6) qualified third fastest on a damp track but mastered the soaking conditions better than all his rivals to take the first run-off win in 32.51sec.
Corfe Mullen's Rob Barksfield took a special trophy for setting the fastest time by a BARC (South Western Centre) member not registered in the British Championship.
Alresford Ginetta specialist Andrew Russell won the 1400cc modified production car class, but Jonathan Gates (Lymington) was pipped into second place by just nine hundredths of a second in the up- to-2000cc modified production sports car class.
Just behind Barksfield in the 1100cc racing car class were Nik Gregory (Stockbridge) and Duncan Barnes (Totton) in his 1.0 Force HC, while New piloted his 2.0 Pilbeam MP88 into second in the up to 2000cc racing car class.
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