SWINDON’S Keith Murray took the Tony Marsh Trophy and the £1,000 cash prize at the Spire FM Race Day at Gurston Down on Sunday as he won the inaugural ‘Gurston 1000’ event, writes Luke Clifford.

Murray took the top prize by beating his class record by the biggest margin on the day, and he carved a whopping 1.26 seconds off the mark for modified series production cars up to 2000cc in his awesomely quick 1.4 litre turbocharged Audi 80 Quattro. He totally smashed the record of 34.06, by doing 32.91 in the morning and then 32.80 in the afternoon.

He said: “We have had a great weekend and there is great companionship and help between drivers.

“I haven’t driven at Gurston for eight years. I have been racing at Castle Coombe but then decided I wanted to do hill climbs again and built a car to fit into a class where I could break records.

“It also has four-wheel drive which I think is the key to its success, giving it more traction.”

Murray has come first in class in all six hill climbs he has entered this year, and has promised to return to Gurston.

Stephen Moore from Stapleford set himself a large challenge. As well as competing in the roadgoing production cars on Sunday at Gurston, he was also racing in Kames, Scotland on Saturday in the Lancer Register sprint series where he came second in class and sixth overall. Then after a long drive back, he came first in his class at Gurston to cap a brilliant weekend.

Roy Barker from Stockbridge had an excellent weekend too, smashing the modified series production saloon cars record by nearly half a second from 33.50 to 33.03.

He said: “I am very, very pleased.

“I did fast practices on Saturday and then did a very fast first run on Sunday.

“My second run wasn’t so good and I was a bit unsettled coming up the hill but I had already broken the record.”

Barker is now second in the Gates of Brockenhurst Gurston Down Hillclimb Championship.

Chris Cannell’s weekend wasn’t so good. He did a 33.51 on his first run and came second in class but unfortunately broke the diff in his St Bruno Roughcutter so wasn’t able to do a second run.

Steve Holley had a good weekend in his TVR Griffith doing a 35.71 but got beaten by Simon Brown, driving Holley’s car, doing 35.37 and coming first in class. Winning both top 12 shoot outs was Derek Young from Hereford, doing 27.98 in the morning round 13 and 27.57 in the afternoon in round 14.

The next meeting is on the weekend of August 25-26.