THE WESTMORLAND Motor Club's 44th Motorcycle Sprint Hillclimb broke new ground on Saturday with an additional class for Quads, which meant 2,3 and four-wheeled machines battled it out for top honours.

There was just a single machine in the racing Quads class (due, in part, to a clash of event dates), but the organisers said the lone 250cc machine provided a glimpse of this new class's potential to entertain - and it may lead a few Cumbrian hill-farmers to look at their daily work machines in a fresh light.

Of interest to classic-bike fans was the fabulous works replica GP 500/4 Gilera (pictured) that local Winster rider Pat Sefton competed on. This is the first of a small batch of bikes built from scratch for customers with £70,000 to spare and is identical to the one on which Bob McIntyre recorded the first 100mph lap of the Isle of Man TT circuit. With its highly-stressed internal components, this was one of a selected few outings that the Gilera will have.

There were more than 80 competitors taking part over the 890yds course, where top speeds were in the high 90mph bracket and the big television screen captured the action at close-quarters.