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report by Peter Fisk, William Moorwood
photography by Mike Stokes, Oliver Read, William Moorwood
Not only an early start but a very busy one with little time to do everything before qualy. Even the unflappable, but very dapper, Andy Bush seemed a little out of sorts. We were the first cars to be out on track and all just about made it on time for the 8.30 start and setting off up Avon rise straight into the sun was a bit of a challenge for those of us not too familiar with the circuit.
It has been a while since we raced at Castle Combe and it was inevitable that some of us would take a few laps to get up to speed. The usual suspects went well but there were notably good performances from Charlie Ugo, George MacFarlane and Jago Keen. Had they been taking part in a little pre-event recce?
Tris Simpson was unusually out of sorts with his 355 apparently unhappy on Combe’s bumpy surface, his times putting him mid-pack.
Jenkins lit the blue touch paper on his last qually lap putting up a quick time to grab pole but his second fastest was not so hot and Culver had pole for race 2.
Race 1
All set off to a quick start and all went well until the first corner when Jim Cartwright went off into the barriers. It all looked a bit alarming and the race was red flagged. In fact, all was OK as Jim had set out to test the absorbency of the latest barriers. We all breathed a sigh of relief and silently thanked Jim for his excellent demonstration.
The grid reformed and due to the short distance covered re-gridded in its original layout a little to the annoyance of a couple of drivers who had made good gains before the red flag, well certainly your two reporters had done well.
Once the race was restarted Gary Culver was exploring as much of the track as possible to keep race leader Nigel Jenkins under pressure from which, on lap 7, he eventually succumbed when Nigel went wide coming out of Quarry letting Gary through for the race win.
Sowter followed a little distance back to take third. Simpson had done some suspension fiddling and had got his 355 up to fifth just behind Butler’s Gp3 328. Back in 7th Fisk thought he was having a lonely race until Ferguson appeared in his mirrors on the last two laps getting the gap down to four tenths at the flag.
Charlie Ugo would have been classified 5th but was found to be underweight post-race and was excluded. Unfortunate, as he was driving really well.
Race 2
At lights out it was Culver away first. Peter Everingham also made a fantastic start catching his fellow Group 3 drivers napping, nice to see him clearly getting back on form.
Again all went well until the first corner when Jago Keen nudged Nick Taylor off into the infield. Jago chose retirement to check his car out but Nick was unscathed and carried on to ultimately finish in 10th place.
Colin Sowter was going well again but hampered, as too were the other 355’s, by dropped oil on track. The marshalls identified the source and George MacFarlane came straight into the pits upon instruction. Colin who had been going well in 3rd place was eventually overtaken and Jim Cartwright and Chris Butler raced past.
Jenkins took the lead from Culver on lap three and went on to the win; this time gapping Culver convincingly by race end.
Charlie Ugo undertook some pre-race pasta loading, for his car of course as it is now up to weight, and duly made up for his disappointment in the first race to finish 6th.
Simpson was still not up to his usual rapid pace and finished down in 7th.
Tony Claringbould had sorted out his mechanical problems which caused him to miss the first race and hounded William Moorwood finally getting past him on the penultimate lap.
Jim caught race commentator Marcus Pye’s eye to get the RnR award. As for the Superformance award it went to Lewis Sharman of Superformance. Well deserved particularly when you take into account all the people he has helped over the season.
Although it was only a one-day event it packed in a lot of action, the paddock full of interesting cars and spectators. It was notable how some of the experienced racers were kept busy greeting old friends. The weather certainly helped to ensure all went well to the finale of a very successful season.
