Hill climber extraordinaire Roy Lane with his wife Bet and young admirer in the Guernsey pits after he won his 90th national championship race on the island in 2003. (0013299)

A MINUTE’S silence will be held before today’s time trial at Petit Bot for national hillclimb legend Roy Lane who died this week, aged 74, after a long illness .

Warwick resident Lane was a frequent competitor on the Val des Terres after making his debut on the hill in 1975.

He won the British Hillclimb Championship that year and again in 1976, 1992 and 1996.

He claimed his 90th national hillclimb victory on the Terres in 2003 in his Pilbeam MP58-09 4 litre DFL aged 68.

‘It’s just really sad,’ said the president of the Guernsey Motor Cycle & Car Club president Bill Cohu.

‘He’s been coming here forever and a day. Everyone was friends with him.

‘You couldn’t find a nicer chap and he was a brilliant driver as well. He was very smooth and he rarely put the car into the wall or anything like that.

‘He was still a very fast driver into his 70s.’

Local racing driver Mike Dean, who competed in the British Hillclimb Championship for a number of years, said Lane had helped him in his career.