FERRARI formula classic

• A prominent new competitor joined the series at Brands. Peter Ratcliffe had brought his very nice Dino 246GT to add another Gp1 car to the series. Peter is a pretty experienced driver of fast machinery, with a lightweight E-type Jaguar and a John Player Special F1 Lotus in his enviable collection.

• Atrill Shaw-Thorpe had a worrying drop in oil pressure in practice, the gauge in his 308GT4 registering zero on some of the corners. He received lots of advice on how to resolve his low oil pressure problem although some of his advisors were slightly taken aback when they saw a large circular tank in his 308GT4’s boot marked ‘Caution: Nitrous Oxide’. Attrill explained that the container was simply a catch tank and the labeling was there to wind up the opposition. One wag said that, knowing where his car is prepared, that didn’t take much doing.

• David Wild had a bad weekend. In practice he found his brakes weren’t up to scratch, subsequently found to be due to badly worn rear pads. Swifty was able to supply him with some fresh pads for his 308GTB. These were fitted and he nipped up the road to bed them in but it wasn’t long before a distress call came from a lay-by on the A20 - there was no drive to the Ferrari’s wheels. Subsequent investigation showed that a drive shaft had failed and sadly, the car was loaded onto its trailer and posted as a non-starter.

• Prior to lunch, Clerk of the Course, Walter Robertson, collected the drivers together in the Club marquee for a briefing. Amongst other useful pieces of advice, Walter warned of two potential traps at Brands at the start of the race. “Don’t weave as you approach Paddock Hill Bend when you get away from the start. And remember to be very careful at Druids on the opening lap – there are well over a hundred corners still to go in the race so you don’t have to do everything on the first one!” As events turned out, some of the drivers clearly hadn’t bothered to listen.

• Nick Taylor dropped out whilst in second place with an air to fuel ratio problem – he had run out of juice! He is an experienced racer and apart from his disappointment he must have been dreading the teasing he was going to suffer at the hands of his chums about forgetting to fill up. Never! We appreciate that he’s also a leading Ferrari hillclimber and had just got a teeny bit confused between the different disciplines. Let’s hope he doesn’t make the same mistake with the carbon metallic brake pads he now uses in racing and the road pads he uses for hillclimbing – could be very nasty.

• The last time Swifty sipped the champagne Brands was a grass track oval run the other way round! One of his fellow Directors, when asked to comment, said "He is the biggest bastion of the Ferrari racing world and a real cult" - at least that’s what we think he said, it was a bad line. Seriously though, congratulations and well done John, it’s good to see you back at the sharp end again!

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Stuart Anderson again won Class 1 in his TR replica

Who's going the right way? 328 vs Mondials at Druids

Team Spicer - charm, good looks, talent and money - pity about the blokes

pics by Paul/Fotografia Corse & Spicervision