27ème Course de Côte Régional de Marquay, 2023.

 

A Peugeot 205 wends its way up the hill past one of a number of buildings.

Drivers running to get to their cars for their fourth run.

The Course de Côte de Marquay is, nowadays, the only hillclimb in the Dordogne, so although it was three hours drive away, I had to get there for its 27th running in July 2023.   It wends its way 1.5kms up the D6 road towards the village of Marquay.  This one of a number of hillclimbs that has free admission, but even then there were not a huge number of spectators.  It was good that they had 37 drivers turn up, which is not bad for this area.  Long may it continue.

I got there in time for the timed practice runs in the morning and stayed for the first three of four official runs up the hill in the afternoon.  It was a reasonable hill for taking photographs and a good commentary to keep you informed of what was going on.  Good parking not too far from the finish and good directions from the closed  part of the A6 plus a couple of "buvettes" added to the day out.  Added to that there were not too many delays in the proceedings.   

All of the cars that took part in the afternoon are shown below.

Fabrice Gallo was overall winner in his Norma M20 FC in a time of 48.329 seconds for the 1,500 metres.

The only single seater taking part came second overall, a Tatuus Formula Master driven by Rémi Bechadergue.

The third place on the podium went to Romain Patacconi in this Norma M20 FC.

Fourth overall and winner of the CM motor cycle engined sports car class was Gabriel Baillou in this
 TracKing RC01.

Fifth overall and second in the CM class was this SpeedCar GTR of Frédéric Rousseau.

Sixth overall was this Fior F05 driven by Didier Gimenez.

First of the Production cars and winner of the FN Group was Kêvin Jarousse in this Renault Mégane 3 RS.

Eighth overall and winner of the F2000 Group was Aurélien Boyer in this Renault Clio.

On opposite lock through the last corner is the Lotus Exige Cup of Christophe Carrere.  He was ninth and the only GT car present.

Tenth overall and the only FC car present was this Talbot Rallye 3 of Jean-Louis Trayaud.

Eleventh was this Talex M3 Motorsport of Laurent Beaussart.

Twelfth and winner of the FA group was Yves Dubrana in this BMW M3 E36.

Thirteenth and second of the F2000 cars was this Renault Clio 2 of William Abba.

Fourteenth and winner of his class was Eric Sauteur in this Renault Clio Ragnotti.

Fifteenth was Laurent Borderie in this Renault Clio RS Line and he also won his class.

Sixteenth in the same car was Julien Borderie.

Seventeenth was Nicolas Buguellou in a Renault Twingo RS.

Eighteenth was this Peugeot 205 driven by Jonathan Massou.

Nineteenth was Gérard Giminez in this Funyo B4.

Twentieth was Nicolas Laval in a Renault Clio 2 RS.

Pierre Ramos was 21st in this Peugeot 309 and won his class.

Laurent Meillet in this Peugeot 106 Rallye was 22nd.

23rd was Citroën ZX of Sébastien Dumas.

Christophe Bernard was 24th in this Peugeot 206 RC.

Gaétan Parade was 25th in this Peugeot 309.

26th was Dimitri Meillet in a Peugeot 106 Rallye.

Francis Lagarrue came 27th in this Renault R5 GT Turbo.

This Citroën Saxo VTS of Alexandre Dupin came 28th.

In 29th place was this Peugeot 205 of Sébastien Labrousse.

In 30th place was this Renault Clio Cup 3 of Jacques Lesaulnier.

This Alfa Romeo 75 driven by Bruno Guillon finished 31st.

In 32nd position was Philippe Quioc in this Peugeot 205 Rallye.

This Citroën Saxo was classified 33rd driven by Franck Chaulet.

Charles Rodrigues Gaspar finished 34th in this Renault Twingo.

The final driver classified was Patrick Leveque in this Opel Astra OPC.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web à condition de créditer le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com, et de fournir un lien vers cette page.

This fuel leaking out of the filler may be the reason this Renault 11 Turbo went home early and wasn't classified.

The last corner.

The house just before the finish line.

Fabrice Gallo, the winner, on his was from the paddock for his final run.

61ème Course de Côte du Mont-Dore / Chambon-sur-Lac 2021, Groupe CM

 

Yves Tholy was the winner of the Groupe CM at Mont Dore in this Speedcar GTR and 23rd fastest overall.

Groupe CM in French hillclimbs is a category for lightweight sports prototype cars with up to 1,000cc motor cycle engines as their power unit.    They are thus very quick and agile and faster than most of the other French hillclmb cars except for the faster Norma 2 litre sports prototype cars and Dallara F3 cars.  What adds to the interest in this category is that there are a number of specialist manufacturers such as Speedcar, BRC and Jema who produce a number of very different looking cars.  TracKing even make their cars look like Audi, Mercedes and BMW DTM cars!

This year at Mont-Dore, on the Saturday when I attended, the weather was changeable with mist, fog, rain and even occasionally some sun making an appearance.  Most of the time it was very cold for an August day.   This made for a difficult photography challenge at times, especially as the conditions change so fast on a mountain.

All of the CM runners in 2021 at the Course de Côte du Mont-Dore / Chambon-sur-Lac are shown in this blogpost, in the order that they were classified.  Positions referred to are compared to the other CM cars.

Coming through the mist on Saturday morning is runner-up Julien Francais in a Speedcar GTR.

Looking like an Audi DTM car is a TracKing RC01B.  Driven by Maxime Dojat, it came third.

Fourth was another TracKing RC01, this one more Mercedes-like and driven by Emilien Thomas.

Fifth was Loïc Hebenger in this Speedcar GTR.

Anthony Carifi in his BRC 05 Evo  was sixth.

Seventh was Gaëton Bischoff in his TracKing RC01B, Mercedes look-alike.

This BRC 49 Evo of  Jean=Marc Tissot was eighth.

With the rain falling, the BRC 05 Evo of Dominique Carifi passes by.

With Lac Chambon below, Tony Pasteau passes by in his Speedcar GTR.

The Jema 650 LPCM of Gabriel Baillou.

The BRC of Jean-Marie Recordier.

Michel Gontier in his BRC B49.

The Jema 630 GTR of Michel Perazzi.

Alain Volbart and his Speedcar GTR.

The Jema 630 GTR of Jean-Marie Autuche.

Alain Boudal and his Jema 630 GT.

The Speedcar GTR Evo of Thierry Granier.

Raphaël Buxeraud and his BRC 02.

The Speedcar GTR of Sébastien Kerlaux.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.

Rudy Perrin and his Jema 630 GT