Rosemary Smith and Louise Aitken-Walker were on hand to present Jennifer with her prize. Image by Reinis Babrovskis
She nearly didn’t make it, but she did in the end thanks to good friends and a Mazda MX-5! Jennifer Mullan took podium position at the Cultra Hilclimb.
Every year the Thoroughbred Sports Car Club in Northern Ireland hold a hillclimb at the Ulster folk and transport museum in Cultra Co.Down. This year the theme was women in motorsport so I decided it was a must do event when I heard about it late last year.
As it was only one week before the next two rounds of the micksgarage.com Formula Sheane championship we decided to take part in some pre event testing in Mondello Park last Friday before hitting the road to Cultra. Unfortunately after just a handful of laps disaster struck my SaySo.ie/Mobileready.ie car and I wasn’t able to select fourth gear. Despite the best efforts of my FCR Media team they were unable to fix the car in time and it looked like my weekend was finished. To say I was gutted was an understatement.
I made a call to my friend Fel who was the Clerk of the Course at around 8pm to let her know that I wouldn’t be able to make the trip up and take part due to the issue with my car when she very kindly offered me the chance to take her road going Mazda MX5 for the event. In Northern Ireland you can run road cars in hillclimbs, all that’s basically required is a fire extinguisher, tax and MOT. Her words were “it’s not a quick car but it would get you a run up the hill”. After very little thought I decided to go for it, as I really wanted to support the event with them putting the effort into promoting ladies in the sport.
With everything that happened during the day, by the time we got the Formula Sheanes back to the workshop, got on the road and made it to Belfast it was 12.30am so some much needed shut eye was had before heading to Cultra the next morning. On arrival I was presented with the keys for my wheels for the day and went for a run around the course to get an eye for where I needed to go and a feel for the car. I was really looking forward to getting going. Being the only one in a road car in the ladies class I had accepted that I wasn’t going to be in the running for a good result.
The event was made up of two practice runs and 3 timed runs. With the ladies class being made up of a variety of different cars the final results at the end of the day would be calculated on what’s known as a handicap system. This was worked out by adding the average of your fastest practice time & your two fastest timed runs to get a handicap allowance to be applied to the scratch times to even things out. I really didn’t understand how it was going to work out so just decided to drive as fast as I could and just have fun. The organisers clearly understood it as on the scratch times the eight cars in the class were split by some ten seconds but when they applied the handicap it was only split by 0.8 seconds.
It felt very strange being in a car with all my race gear on and just a normal seat belt holding me in. After my two practice runs I was sitting fifth fastest in class which I was delighted with in my little mx5 that had been driven to the event on the road but more importantly I was grinning from ear to ear after each run as the car was so much fun to drive.
The sun continued to shine into the afternoon and after my first two timed runs I had improved on my first practice run by six seconds. That was set to be the best I could do for the day though as out of no where a heavy shower arrived just before our third run so I knew I wasn’t going to go any faster so decided to just go out have some more fun and try put on a bit of a show for the crowds that had come to watch for the day. With the ground being wet the MX5 didn’t take as much convincing to get the tail out as earlier leaving me finishing the third run at a ninety degree angle sliding across the finish line with a massive smile on my face!
It was then down to the steps of the Cultra Manor for the ladies prize giving and a few photographs. I was not expecting to come home with any crystal but I really didn’t mind as I had enjoyed my day so much. The oranisers gathered on the steps to announce the results in reverse order with the handicap allowance applied to the times. I couldn’t believe it when my name was called for third place just 0.07 seconds behind the BWRDC’s hillclimb champion Jo Hodgson in second and a further 0.15 seconds behind the overall winner Shelia Glover (that was the amount of time we were split by in the results not how quickly they were called out).
I was a little over whelmed going up to be presented my award from 2 motorsport legends, Rosemary Smith and Louise Aitken-Walker as it was so unexpected but it really made my day!
I would really like to thank the TSCC for holding such a great event and to my friend Fel for the last minute loan of the car.
My SaySo.ie/MobileReady.ie Formula Sheane will be back in action this weekend 9th June for the 45th anniversary of Mondello Park so until then, thanks for reading!
Jennifer Mullan
4th June, 2013
