British Hillclimb Championship

The British Hill Climb Championship (BHCC) is the most prestigious Hillclimbing championship in Great Britain. Hillclimbing in the British Isles has a rich history and this event has been held every year since 1947.

All British Champions have been British. As of the end of the 2016 season, the most successful driver in terms of individual victories is Scott Moran, with 152. Moran and Tony Marsh jointly hold the record for the most championships, with six. Ken Wharton is the only driver to win four consecutive titles.

The following tracks (listed in alphabetical order) are used in the BHCC. As mentioned below, each day's hillclimbing contains two rounds of the Championship.

A number of other venues have featured in the championship over the years including Bo'ness, Dyrham Park, Fintray, Great Auclum, Lhergy Frissel, Longleat, Pontypool Park, Rest and Be Thankful, Stapleford Aerodrome, Tholt-y-Will and Westbrook Hay.

A major hillclimb may have an entry of more than 150 drivers, but the event is usually a qualifying round of more than one competition, and some drivers (especially drivers of less powerful cars) will not be entered for the British Championship itself. Those who are, and who record a time in the top twelve of all those eligible, compete in a "run-off" at the end of each set of class run (there are two such sets of class runs at each event). In a run-off, drivers tackle the hill in reverse order of their qualifying times, although where two drivers share a car, the slower qualifier competes at the start of the run-off session. The person who sets the fastest time receives 10 British Championship points, the second-fastest driver nine, and so on down to the tenth-placed driver, who gets one. The 11th and 12th-placed drivers, and any who fail to complete the course, receive no points.

An extra point is given to any driver in the run-off who breaks the outright hill record as it stood at the beginning of the day. There are usually 34 such run-offs (i.e. 17 hillclimbs with two run-offs at each), but drivers can only count their 28 best results towards their final points total. In 2004, Adam Fleetwood achieved the unprecedented feat of winning 28 rounds, and so had to drop all his non-win points. Even so, he won the championship by a huge margin - before taking account of his dropped scores, he had racked up 318 points, with the runner-up, 1997 champion Roger Moran, a massive distance behind on 176 points.

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