Martin Groves prepares his car at the start of the day. By the end of it, he had equalled Roy Lane’s mark of 90 run off victories. (Pictures by Tom Tardif, 0808744)

MARTIN GROVES again proved why he is the king of Le Val des Terres at the weekend.

The Oxfordshire driver holds the fastest time up the Terres, when he set a blistering 27.86sec. in July 2007.

In what can only be described as filthy weather conditions on Saturday, he was never going to get near that time.

But as the rain briefly held off towards the end of the afternoon and the road had time to dry, he set the meeting’s quickest time of 34.47 to win round 22 of the MSA British Hill Climb Championship.

‘I do love this hill but I prefer it when it’s dry,’ said Groves. ‘When it was wet in the middle of the day it was treacherous. I struggled to use any power at all.’

As the quickest qualifier for the second run-off with a time of 37.25, Groves had the privilege of going up last.

Needing to beat Trevor Willis’ 36.17, Groves smashed it by nearly two seconds.

‘By the last run it was getting better by the minute,’ said Groves. ‘That was an advantage, running last.’

It was also his 90th run-off victory and it put him level with British hill climb legend Roy Lane.