This can be very chaotic and important for the overall time, often the road is not flat at the start so with no hand brake to hold the car this can be a problem but at some courses they provide a wood chuck to hold the car. All good clean fun.

My 1st hill climb with the Kodak Lola. 1st in class and 2nd overall. Not a bad result considering that I had never done a hill climb before. from memory it was about 3kms long but as you can see, narrow and twisty with no margin for mistakes. By the end of the season in 1972 I was getting the hang of racing against the clock. We had to do events most week-ends and if there were no circuit races we did hill climbs, some of them were 30kms long! A shame we left all the Trophies we won at Kodak offices in Paris which I think is now closed.

I was just sent this picture of my B8 Chevron by Morton Alstrup. It shows a 1968 photo which I have never seen before, so always exciting to find new pix.I have asked Morton if her has more ? Here’s hoping.

Thanks to the net I found my old chum Adrian today. He came to visit me, we had not met up since 1968, in those days he used to assist with our Chevron B8.
After my recent health problems it was great to catch up with my old friend, cheered me up no end. Here is the portrait taken Marie-Therese on the great little Canon S110.I have discovered that he comes to London every now and again so we will be able to carry on reminiscing about “old times” which is what old racers love to do. As my pal Grahame White says ” The older we get the FASTER we went! ”

This is the paddock area at the Chamrousse International Hill Climb near Grenoble. Barrie seen chatting to a local girl, Clair Escarfail who had come of from Pontcharra to see the event.
Chamrousse was a huge event in those days, 21 kms long, Barrie won the 2 litre Proto class. an excellent result.

Here is Jacques on his first attempt at the grueling Paris Dakar rally with his Mercedes G wagon he did finish which is a great result. This was in 1984.

Here is the Avalon Chevron B8 at Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit 1968. Barrie broke the lap record at this event for 1600cc GT cars on the long Circuit at Brands Hatch. As this track is not used very often the lap record was held for quite some time.

Here is the D&A Shells Mercury GT driven by my pal Alan Fowler at Brands Hatch on the Grand Prix Circuit in 1968. Sadly this is not the best image quality but photos of this car are extremely rare.At least you can see what it looks like !

This is a rare photo of Barrie with Alan Fowler the fellow racer who used to build and drive his own cars called Mercury GT with 1600cc. A GT car with an excellent turn of speed with Alan behind the wheel. He can be found elsewhere on this site in Denmark Jllandsringen 1968 and Oulton Park the same year. Alan and Barrie are still in touch. This photo was taken at the Fowler’s builders yard in Stratford High Street, London E15.

General Paddock scene at the Danish race of 1968