Report
Racing Sports Cars continues to bring to you reports from other than regularly covered championships and this time we made a trip to the fifth round of this year's European Hillclimb championship, which was held on track called Ecce Homo in Sternberg, Czech Republic. The first records of racing here dates back to 1905, which makes it allegedly one of three oldest track in the world. Modern history of Ecce Homo racing started in 1971 when on the renew five kilometres long track was held a race counted toward the National Czech Championship. The first winner was Borivoj Korinek in Skoda 1500 sports car. Next few years were still won by local drivers but during mid to end seventies international importance of the race grew and among winner we can find drivers like Hans Ruedi Wittwer or Dieter Kern who at the wheel of Formula 2 cars dominated that pre-European Championship era. Both achieved three overall wins. The 1981 edition was the first one to be counted toward the European Championship. This year it was already the 27th edition of the race.
A few words about the modern history of the European Championship includes a big change last year when until then dominating group CN sports car were eliminated by old Formula 3000 cars, which found their way to the Championship officially in 2006. Most sports car hillclimb drivers really moved there after their dominating CN machines were reduced on power with prospect of being cut down from three litres to two litres. So dominating Osellas were replaced by old Lolas and Reynards, many of them having been built more than ten years ago. They started in the races counted towards the European Championship even before but were neither classified for the Championship, nor the drivers could score any points.
Entry list
The meeting was not only part of the FIA European Hill-Climb Championship but was also counted to the FIA Historic Hill-Climb Championship as well as some national series in Czech Republic and Austria. So apart from seven Formula 3000/Formula Nippon cars and seven open top sports cars we had various and interesting machinery in field including more than three tens of historic cars consisting of two mid 70s Formula 2 cars, which were the quickest, one Group 6 sports car of French origin called Dangel and many many others touring cars, racing cars (again mainly from 70s) and couple of early 50s locally built sports cars, which closed up the field.
Modern cars were filled up by various touring car classes. It is a long time ago when only groups N and A cars were permitted to race. Now we have Super Production class, modern WTCC class called S20. This class is very new to the championship so we had here just one starter in it. Perhaps most interesting production cars could be seen in a free class called E1 but this is still not counted to the official championship but we believe there is some kind of Cup or Challenge for these cars already. Many of these E1 cars either lost homologation a long time ago or are one-off built specials based on production cars. Former Group B Lancia Delta Integrale, BMW M3 GTR and Mitsubishi Colt Evo were among fastest cars in the class.
As for drivers, potential winners we could expext between Ander Vilarino, son of multiply Ecce Homo winner Andres Vilarino, and last year's winner Fausto Bormolini. It was also interesting to see here Andres Vilarino too. He appeared in this year's Championship after a longer break. The team had a car prepared for Mrs. Vilarino but when she found herself pregnant and the car appeared free, experienced Vilarino Sr. decide it to use it. Unfortunately this two litre Norma in Group CN had only a very limited chances against powerful Formula 3000 cars. But Andres was surely on of main favourites in the sports car class despite half of the field was formed but three litres.
Saturday's Practice
Unlike Sunday's race, as we can see soon, the practice runs were held under pretty good conditions. The track was dry, it was a little above 20 °C and the sun was out during the afternoon. That allowed Ander Vilarino in his Reynard F3000 to ran under 3 minutes, which is an excellent time in Ecce Homo (no sports car ever run here under 3:01) in his first heat. And in the second heat he almost set the new official track record being just about 0.7 slower than he was here two years ago during the race. Fausto Bormolini in his twelve years old Reynard was full 8 seconds slower than Vilarino while fastest local driver Benes in Ralt and another former Ecce Homo winner Laszlo Szasz in Reynard were back by further two seconds.
Top seven spots in the results sheets were taken by all F3000-like cars ahead fastest two-litre F3 based Dallara of local driver Milan Svoboda, who is very quick especially in wet and became Czech National Champion last year against faster and more powerful cars. Andres Vilarino in Norma 2000 CN and Fajkus in aging Lucchini CN were next to form the TOP 10. Fastest production based car was next and it was the already mentioned Lancia Delta driven by Felix Pailer.
Sunday's race - heat 1
It was very wet since the early morning on Sunday and before the race started, it had begun to rain unremittingly. So the engine power differences were partly elimiated and it allowed defending Czech Champion Milan Svoboda almost win the heat after being only 0.23 seconds behind Bormolini who took the lead after the first heat. Vilarino, the fasted driver in practice by far, did not run well and was classified only fifth after running five seconds slower than Svoboda in two-litre car. It was a bad weekend for sports cars. Of the seven car present, one of hot favourites Kramsky from Czech Republic was out just by Saturday afternoon, when an engine in his car was unreparably broken (the driver started the season with another F3000 car but it was heavily damaged in national championship race a few weeks ago), unrestricted 3-litre Osella was out after the second practice session and another quick local driver retired during the first race heat after having serious problems already in practice. With all but one quick drivers out of the race, Vilarino Senior was now without any real opposition in the class.
We should mention also historic race events where fastest driver Petr Vondrak in March 752 F2 car spun on the wet track and lost one minute before he could continue. However Prasek in another F2 (Chevron B42) and Pavel Vondrak in the lonely Group 6 Dangel were very close at the top. Following positions among historic cars belonged to legendary Skodas 130 RS that were unbeatable in their class in later seventies and in 1981 Skoda even became the official FIA European Touring Car Champion in its final year for Group 2 cars. Even today they were quicker than similarly powered formulas, more powerful touring cars or Porsche Carrera RSR than appeared in the field too.
Sunday's race - heat 2
After the first heat ended, the rain stopped and when the first group of car lined up for the start of the second heat, the track was partly dry. Despite the clouds and darkness later in the afternoon the rain did not appear again during racing so the final runs were really held on a dry track. That was a chance for Ander Vilarino who proved to be able to run easily much quicker than the rest of the field on dry conditions. And he did not disappoint expectations and despite running not as quick as on Saturday, his time in 2:56s was quite enough against Bormolini's 3:04.9 to win overall. No one else run under 3:10. Svoboda could not keep up the pace with F3000 on dry and was classified fifth behind four F3000 that made it into the finish (other three big Formulas retired). Best Czech driver in the final classification was then Dusan Neveril ahead of former sports car driver Renzo Napione. Both of them were ahead of Vilarino after the first heat.
Surprisingly quick Felix Pailer in Lancia Delta Integrale was next more then two seconds ahead of fastest sports car, which was Norma M20 driven by Andres Vilarino, the father of Ander. Next four positions belonged also to the special production cars in E1 class, in the order Mitsubishi Colt Evo, Lotus Michl 07/01 (special based on Opel Speedster), BMW M3 GTR and Opel Omega Evo 500. These cars, resembling old good Group 5 cars, would surely be a welcome addition to the official European classification, especially after demise of real sports cars and dominance of aging F3000s. The times when factory Porsches, Ferraris and Abarths were regulars of the European Hillclimb Championship and when top sports car drivers were among overall Champions are long time gone but it would be still interesting to bring the championship back to the level it used to be during 70s and 80s when Group 4, 5 and 6 cars were the standard and a lot of interesting cars were seen here. Modern GT cars are an option at the moment too but despite officially allowed to the championship, there is really no regular driver in the series with a GT car and thus there was no contender in that class in Ecce Homo at all. Though the Hillclimb races are not bad at the moment, let us hope they will become better and more attractive in the future.
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