A bumper crowd of more than 2000 piled into the Folk and Transport Museum in Ulster to witness a raft of historic and modern racers tackle the famed Cultra Hillclimb on 13 June.
The out-and-out winner was Chris Houston, who picked up the Lyness Trophy for the fastest time of the day, topping the Racing Car class in his OMS in the process. His 31.93secs time was enough to see off his nearest rival, Jaye Nevin in his Lotus Reynard who, despite leading for most of the day couldn’t better his quickest time of 32.05secs.
Away from the single-seaters, the 40th anniversary of the Ford Escort Mk2 was celebrated in fine style, with several cars taking to the hill while a large number were also put on static display. Among their number was the car of the late Simon McKinley, the multiple Irish hillclimb champion who lost his life in a crash in April.
Not to be outdone, Chevron’s long association with Northern Ireland was marked by a static display of several of the marque’s models, including the B1 that won its debut race at Kirkistown in the summer of 1965, a B8 example, plus Tommy Reid’s singe-seater F2.
