Ben Newman has produced a commanding victory in the 31 Bends of Barrington Hillclimb on the weekend, taking out the event by more than one second.
 
Behind the wheel of his Subaru WRX, Newman posted the fastest time out of 43 competitors with his closest competitors being Mitsubishi Evo V pilot Nathan Stones, while Stuart Benson rounded out the podium after a fierce battle with Peter Nunn.
 
With all competitors attempting five runs up the challenging course, Newman went third overall on his opening run, while teammate Crichton Lewis went fastest overall with a time of 1:39.57 and Stones a close second.
 
However, Newman kicked into gear on the second run, shaving almost three seconds off and charging to the top of the time sheets as Lewis was unable to better his opening time, while Stones went one second faster.
 
Newman improved significantly again on his third run by half a second to a 1:36.81, which would have won the event regardless, before eventually posting his best time on his final run – a 1:36.35 proving too quick.
 
Although Stones showed plenty of improvement across the day, his best time of 1:37.46 on the fourth run was only good enough to beat Newman’s second run time by one-hundredth of a second.
 
Following on from his victory, Newman was pleased with his performance and ability to handle the challenging track.  
 
“The Barrington hill climb was a great day out and the North West Car Club put on a great show for all those who attend – it’s an extremely well-run event with some great scenery,” Newman said.
 
“It’s actually quite a challenging event and it didn’t feel comfortable at the start. Being the first car to do the first run, the track was pretty mossy – in fact, the track as a whole had low grip compared to going there at the end of summer. 
 
“Based on that, we couldn’t get close to records, but I was pleased to improve on almost every run.
 
“The second run was probably what set us up for the rest of the event as it gave us the confidence to keep pushing, which was good because Nathan was showing good pace. 
 
“Overall. it was just a nice day and low key and we had a lot of fun.”
 
While Newman had a decent advantage over Stones in the battle for top spot, the more intriguing duel was the one below them as Benson secured a podium place on the final run of the event.
 
Very little separated the Subaru of Benson and the Porsche of Nunn across the whole event with Benson having gone less than two-tenths faster than Nunn on the opening three runs before the balance tipped in Nunn’s favour on the penultimate run.
 
Having gone almost three-tenths faster on his fourth attempt with a time of 1:38.34, Benson managed to snatch third place on his final run as he went just one-tenth faster. 
 
Making up the top five was Darren Anderson, while Lewis never improved from his first attempt of the weekend to finish sixth.
 
View the full results here.