{"id":643080,"date":"2026-05-01T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643080\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:30:20","slug":"classics-return-to-historic-hillclimb-at-rob-roy-celebrating-john-sheppard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643080\/","title":{"rendered":"Classics return to Historic Hillclimb at Rob Roy celebrating John Sheppard"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLASSICS from across the motorsport spectrum are set to head to the hills this weekend, with the VHRR Rob Roy Hillclimb set for Sunday.<\/p>\n

Run in conjunction with the venue\u2019s custodians, the MG Car Club of Victoria, the leading theme of the day will be a tribute to John Sheppard.<\/p>\n

The legendary mastermind of the Holden Dealer Team passed away last July.<\/a><\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s event will feature a mix of tin tops, sports cars and open-wheelers, ranging from the early days of the sport to contemporary times.<\/p>\n

The storied venue in the Christmas Hills to the north of Melbourne was the first permanent paved hillclimb in Australia, and the only third in the world.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years, the facility has hosted a who\u2019s who of motorsport, including the VHRR\u2019s founding club patron, the late Sir Jack Brabham, as well as names such as Harry Firth<\/a>, Stirling Moss, Jean Behra, Reg Parnell, Stan Jones, Lex Davison, Bill Patterson, Doug Whiteford, Reg Hunt, Len Lukey, John Bowe<\/a> and many more.<\/p>\n

Brit Peter Whitehead won the very first Australian Hillclimb Championship, which was contested at Rob Roy in 1938, the same year he claimed the Australian Grand Prix at Mount Panorama\u2019s inaugural meet.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rob Roy venue was initially established by the Light Car Club of Australia in 1937 and ran until 1962, when bushfires destroyed the track.<\/p>\n

The 670m layout was revived in 1993, with hot times today coming in at 20sec, some 17sec faster than the original FTDs.<\/p>\n

\u200bSpectator entry to the event is $10 per person or $20 per carload, with competition to start at 9am.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

The VHRR is an advertising partner of V8 Sleuth<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLASSICS from across the motorsport spectrum are set to head to the hills this weekend, with the VHRR…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-643080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}