Mid-Cheshire Motor Racing Club and Scammonden Hill

This is our own venue and is looked after by MCMRC and the MG car club, work has been progressing over the last couple of years to improve the facility and people who have been using the venue will be able to see the progress up to date, a lot of hard work has been carried out by club members at the weekends, the lower assembly area has been greatly improved with hard core being laid down and then leveled off, drainage of the area has also been improved with new gulleys dug to allow water to run off into the stream on the right.

From the pictures you can see the armcove has been given a lick of paint giving the hill more of a motor sport venue look. Work on the top paddock has also been carried out mainly hardcore in the parking areas for the rd going cars, to give them a better footing as many of you will know what it can get like with the inclement weather that can suddenly arrive. There are plans for the future to have the paddock area at the bottom near the assembly area which will improve things no end so watch this space for future updates and progress reports.

Photo 1 Shows the start line up to the first 90 degree left hand bend.
Photo 2 Shows the short straight past the pump house on the right.

Photo 3 Shows the exit of the hairpin and a short straight to the next left.
Photo 4 Is a view back down the hill to the right hairpin in photo 3

Photo 5 Shows the long straight up to a tight right hand bend which then opens.
Photo 6 Looking back down the hill to photo 5 after it tightens.

Photo 7 Looking back down the hill after the tight right hand bend opens.
Photo 8 View looking up from photo 7 as it opens.

Photo 9 The finish line with the 50m mark in the bottom right hand corner of the photo. 		 
   

A little Scammonden History.

Over the years, Scammonden has seen many exciting incidents, not the least being the 1975 outright hill record setting of Roy Lane, many times winner of the British Hill Climb Championship. In his five litre Chevrolet powered McRae GM1 single seater racing car, he achieved a time of 21.97 seconds. This represents an average speed of more than 50 mph, no mean feat from a standing start, despite spinning just after the finish and narrowly missing his own and other tow vehicles parked in the paddock!
Even though most cars today cannot match the 500+ bhp. Ray had in 1975, chassis development, particularly the use of high power, low weight motor cycle engines and modern materials, such as carbon fibre and much improved racing tyres, has lead to cars with a power to weight ratios greater than Ray's 500 bhp/ton Chevrolet. Those cars also have a much greater capability to transfer the power to the road and although no one has recently got close to matching the time of Roy Lane he achieved in 1975, some of the faster cars we see on the hill today generally are able to get within one or two seconds of his electrifying run and we are sure, one day the record will be broken.