Shelsley Records

Sir,

Along with many others, I was enthralled by the duel for points towards the Hill Climb Championship at Shelsley Walsh on June 8th. On the final run of the day Alister Douglas-Osbourne took FTD and knocked another 0.64 sec off the record. I was wondering how much more the record could go on being reduced. I thought it would be interesting to plot the times given in the programme, for the years since 1905, against the dates. The result is shown on the enclosed graph.

The first striking factor is the extent of the discontinuities following both wars. If the horizontal axis were plotted with the war years omitted, a smooth curve would not result. The record was falling far more rapidly just prior to WW2 than it was afterwards. In fact, if the war had not intervened, would the present record have been set 20 years ago?

Finally, my prediction is that a time of 25 seconds will be achieved in 1989 and 20 seconds around 2020! (If another world war does not intervene).

R Duffield, Penarth, S Glamorgan