Rally legend Paddy Hopkirk reopened the Kop Hillclimb after 84 years, speeding up the hill in a 2009 Mini after the marshal dropped the Union flag. Although there had been a previous event in 1999 called the Risborough Revival, it had 150 cars present and was described as “low key.” Tony Davies, member of the MG Car Club was responsible for this event. Having watched the likes of Moss and Fangio at Aintree as a boy, Mr. Davies said: “Part of the reason I got involved in this was I was so annoyed I missed it! I saw the kind of archive of the old racing in the 1920s, and that really inspired me. I thought we’ve got to do it again.”
Organization took a long time since there were health and safety measures to deal with. “I suppose we’re a pack of amateurs and we put it together,” Davies said. “It does take a long time when you’re trying to learn the trade as you go along. We’re not event organizers, we’re just enthusiasts.”
Amateurs or not, Mr. Davies and the organizing committee gathered 200 cars dating from 1900 to 1973, and 50 prewar motorcycles. The paddock was on a nearby rugby and football field, which allowed visitors to get a close look at the cars. There were real automotive treats among them. One had been restored this year, the third prototype of the 1913 Aston Martin, the oldest Aston in the world. “Lionel Martin, who was the designer, drove it up this hill in 1924 so it’s the first time it’s come back,” explained Davies. Another was the 1934 Riley Ulster Imp with which 1958 F1 World Champion Mike Hawthorn first made his name in motor racing.
The hill itself offered a significant challenge. It had gradients of 1:8 at the beginning and 1:4 at the end, at a distance of two-thirds of a mile. Between 1910 and 1925, famous drivers like Malcolm Campbell, Louis Zborowski, and Raymond Mays competed here. It was Oxford student Francis Giveen, on a cold March 28, 1928, who brought the hillclimb to an end and outlawed road racing in Britain. He crashed Mays’s Bugatti and broke a spectator’s leg.
Buckinghamshire was well served by hillclimbs in the early 20th century. Oxford and Cambridge held their intervarsity hillclimbs at Tring, and there was the Aston Clinton hillclimb. The Dashwood hillclimb was another. “One of the moving forces for bringing this back is the fact that there were so many hillclimbs around here and now there’s none,” said Davies. “So, we hope with Kop, we will have started a trend.”
Blessed with September sunshine, it certainly got off to an auspicious start. The entry fees contributed toward Risborough Community Action, Iain Rennie, and to Paddy Hopkirk’s charity, Skidz, which provides apprenticeships to the motor industry. It has been estimated that 5,000 people attended the two days, and more than £30,000 was raised. The organizers intend to hold a celebration of the centenary of the hillclimb next year.
by Simon Stiel
