THE new hill record holder at Shelsley Walsh will be the man to beat at the historic Teme Valley venue this weekend.

Scotsman Graeme Wight Jnr stunned the large crowd at last month's meeting by breaking the nine-year old record with a sensational time of 25.28 seconds on the very last run of the weekend.

Wight now has his sights on lowering the record still further, coming from a double victory at Harewood in Yorkshire last weekend.

This weekend's meeting is the 168th national event to be organised at the world's oldest motor racing course by the Midland Automobile Club, which celebrates its centenary this year.

The meeting is a qualifying round of the Tran-X British Hillclimb Championship, the power-mec British Leaders Championship and the Midland Hillclimb Championship.

Shelsley has an entry of 200 cars and motorcycles, including famous cars from the past through classics up to the latest F1 powered specially designed projectiles in the Unlimited capacity Racing Cars Class.

Motorcycles also figure prominently and all top specialists on two and three wheels are attempting to break Philip Gregory's long-standing outright motorcycle record.

The action starts at 10am on Sunday, with practice sessions beginning at the same time tomorrow.

Each competitor gets two runs, both counting for championship points, followed by a top 12 run-off.

Over the winter there have been many improvements at Shelsley, notably the re-surfacing of the famous 'S' bend, improved spectator path and new viewing facilities.