Jason Mourant, who made the second top-12 run-off on Bouley Bay hill

A JERSEY racing driver put in a brilliant display yesterday by making it into the second top-12 run-off at yesterday’s British Hill Climb Championship rounds hosted by the Jersey Motorcycle and Light Car Club.

Recent local sprint record-breaker Jason Mourant, in his OMS Cf08, qualified after runs of 41.02s and 41.42s up the Bouley Bay course before recording a 45.88s in the run-off.

According to organisers, it is virtually unheard of for a local driver to reach this stage of the competition against some of the UK’s top championship competitors.

Guernsey’s Justin Smith also made it through but was over a second slower than Mourant in the run-off with a time of 47.07s. Five records were also broken at the event, with Jersey’s Oliver du Feu once again lowering his own record in the quad unlimited class, this time by over a second from 47.97s set in May to 46.80s on his first run yesterday.

Guernsey’s Dale Crowsley also broke his own record, set in May, in the rally-cars-up-to-1400 cc class with a run of 50.48s, while fellow Sarnian Justin Smith took two tenths of a second off his 2003 record in the sports libre unlimited class. And Andrew de la Cour took two one-hundredths of a seconds off his May record in the modified production saloons up to 1400.

Paul Haimes was the only UK competitor to break a record, lowering the racing cars 1601cc to 2000cc class record set in 1998 from 40.21s to 39.77s.

The top drivers of the day were predictably the top two UK championship contenders, 2008 champion Scott Moran and 2008 runner-up Martin Groves, although their efforts were hampered by rain showers at times.