The Spanish Hillclimb Championship visited the Portuguese city of Braga on the 6th, 7th and 8th of May for its annual date with the 'Rampa Internacional da Falperra'. This was the third round of the national series, eligible also for the European and Portuguese championships, and it had, among its more than 150 entrants, two drivers at the wheel of Speed Cars, the Cantabrian Juan Castillo, looking again for one of the top positions in Category 2 with his GTR, and the Asturian José García, aiming to gather experience with his recently bought GT1000.
As had happened at Ubrique, the rain made the event very hard, with heavy showers, several incidents and a lot of delays throughout the two days. The conditions were never good and all the timed runs where held on a slippery road. On Saturday, Castillo set the fourth fastest time of Category 2 with his Speed Car GTR in the official climb that closed the first day and which was run under a downpour. On Sunday the rain was intermittent so the times of the two remaining climbs would finally decide the result. On the second, the only one run without rain but with a lot of damp areas on the track, the Cantabria born driver was again fourth, but just 6 tenths shy of the third placed driver, Arkaitz Ordoki. He recovered the difference in the final timed climb, run again on a wet track and where Castillo scored the third fastest time and beat Ordoki by enough of a margin to clinch third position in Category 2, thus scoring his third consecutive podium in the 2016 Spanish Hillclimb Championship.
For José García his maiden run at Falperra was really hard. The Asturias born driver suffered a lot under the very tough conditions that he had to deal with while learning the very fast track of Falperra, and he didn't start the Sunday runs once he had fulfilled his target of gaining yet more experience at the wheel of the Speed Car GT1000 ahead of his home race, the El Fito hillclimb due this weekend.
