Download File

1912
Beacon Hill - 31 st August
Beacon Hill was the crowning of Hubert Woods’s career and Crossley competition successes.
Map Key 16
Here is the newspaper report from ‘The Leicestershire Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury’ from the
7 th of Sept 1912.
LEICESTERSHIRE AUTOMOBILE CLUB’S
HILL-CLIMBING COMPETITION
ALL RECORDS BEATEN
NEW FASTEST TIME
The annual hill-climbing competition in connection with the Leicestershire Automobile Club, held on
Saturday, at Beacon Hill, Woodhouse Eaves, was a great and unqualified success. From the very first
ascent of the hill Miss Starkey leading the event on her 12-15 Sunbeam, to the last, when Woods on a
20 Crossley, romped up in less than a minute, the programme never had an uninteresting feature.
The weather was perfect for the occasion, the sun hardly being so powerful as it was last year, made
better times possible; the recent rain had left the surface in very passable and the entries were three
times the number there were last year, then a record in this respect. All these being what they were,
were sufficient of course to make the occasion a success.
The manner in which the officials worked together for the success of the meeting was also a
contributing cause and not least of all the record number of spectators, keen motorists every one of
them, made the event of a character which will never be forgotten.
THE VENUE
As last year, the climb took place at Beacon Hill, which is in every way admirable for the purpose. It is
certainly the best hill in the county for the purpose of giving a car occasion for proving its merits. The
road is fairly wide, and not abnormally winding, so that speed is not sacrificed to safety. The
authorities-the Barrow Rural District Council and the Leicestershire County Council-had kindly given
permission for the use of the hill for this purpose, and their demands that the road should not be
blocked for the usual traffic, if there were to be any, were faithfully observed. Another route, however,
to which the ordinary traffic could be diverted, runs parallel with the hill, and regular users of the road
almost to a man kindly fell in with the “if you don’t mind please” of the club, and “went by on the other
ride”. So that to all intents and purposes the hill was left to the own sweet will of the record breakers.
The hill extends for nearly a mile; the exact distance being marked for the club being 1,450 yards. The
greatest gradient is one in ten, and the average for the hill is one in fourteen. It will thus be seen that
there is what a motorist mindful of his engine would call a “tiring” rise all the whole for nearly a mile,
giving an excellent test for the staying power of a car.
The timekeeping arrangements were such as to permit of not possible mistake occurring. The
telephone wire ran the whole length of the hill and the judges at the top heard each car start at the
bottom. Every car was checked twice by two timekeepers, the times being taken immediately and
booked up. The calculations as to position and performance on formula were made independently by
two mathematicians and the result then compared, thus obviating the possibility of error.
`