Devon celebrates a speed hillclimbing champion

It has been a memorable season of speed hillclimbing for Devon’s Ed Hollier in his Force HC single-seater racing car.

At the final round of the Championship held recently at the Tregrehan venue near St Austell, he clinched the Fusion Fostering Association of South-Western Motor Club’s Hillclimb Championship. A successful defence of the Championship that he also won in 2023 and underlining his status as the fastest driver in the South-West.

Woolbridge Motor Club member Ed has been in fantastic form all season long. At his “home” hill of Wiscombe Park, Honiton, he has achieved seven Fastest Times of the Day, setting both National and Regional Records - 35.59s during the British Championship event in July and a 35.29s at the final event of the season, the MG Car Club meeting.

The 2024 Championship was a very close battle with five drivers in title contention. A driver is allowed to count only their best nine results from the 14 rounds – and bonus points are awarded for setting new records.

Chasing Ed very hard was Jack Ellis in his Subaru Impreza – he set records at Werrington and Gurston Down on his way to second place in the Championship – finishing just 0.4 of a point behind Ed!

There was a three-way tie for third place between Julian Rinaldi, Ian Ingleheart and Paul Reynolds – all finished with 189 points. This situation was decided by their respective dropped scores total. The top five drivers were separated by just 1.08 points – that is a close finish!

Ed made his hillclimb debut in 1994 at Torbay MC’s Oddicombe Hillclimb sharing a highly modified Austin Mini – a very rapid race spec machine – with his father Bob. At just his second event at the challenging Tregrehan hill, he finished an impressive runner up behind Mark Shillabeer, probably one of the South-West’s fastest drivers at that time, in atrocious conditions. Innumerable class wins and records followed.

Ed graduated to single seater racing cars and made his British Hillclimb Championship debut in 2004 and was crowned MSA Hillclimb Leaders Champion in 2007. He made further appearances in the BHC in 2007, 2013 and 2015-2017 – achieving a best Championship event finish of 7th in July 2016. His best BHC season was 2016 finishing in 9th place overall.

Speed hillclimbing is a family sport – Ed’s father, Bob, still assists with the maintenance of the car and is always in the paddock on race days helping to make adjustments for those impressive high speed runs.

If you want to see Ed in action, the first event of the 2025 season at Wiscombe Park is on April 26/27 – for all the latest news please visit the web site https://www.wiscombepark.co.uk/ and for Woolbridge MC https://woolbridge.co.uk/