FERRARI formula classic

Unbroken blue skies, the dunes and the sea
No 308 though for Vivien & me
Still, lots of chips with mayo on top
Party at night, bop till you drop

Gary on pole again
So no changes there
You’d think he’d slow down a bit
It would only be fair

Great place to be
So where were you all?
If only you knew
We were having a ball

Right enough of that nonsense. Racing is great – Ferrari racing is better – Ferrari racing overseas is the best. End of lesson.

The Italia Zandvoort meeting holds lots of memories for many of our more seasoned competitors. The track is super and being a seaside town there are lots of shops, restaurants and coffee shops. Miles of beaches too. The meeting used to be crammed with wonderful cars from Italy with races full of Daytonas, SWB, F40s, 275s plus other Italian marques of course. The Dutch had a very active club racing membership themselves and maybe they still do, but today the festival is a shadow of its former self. The venue is great but many of the old racers now race in GT or Shell hysteric or just do touring events like Tour de France. It is a shame of course, but nothing stays the same. So it was left to us Brits to uphold the Ferrari racing flag in Holland.

Saturday in Holland was hot – no, make that very hot. Our game chaps had a free practice, two qualifying sessions and a race. Phew ! 1st Qualy saw young Gary Culver at the head with a 2.06.81 followed by Simon Bartholomew, Pogson, Swift and Jenkins. By second qualy (for Race 2) Pogson had improved to a 2.07.24 just ahead of Jenkins on 2.09.16 and a slower Bartholomew on 2.10.38. It is interesting to note that whilst Gary’s time had remained the same some had improved a fair bit between the two sessions. Jenkins found 1.7 secs, Pogson 2 secs, Marco Pullen 3.2 secs.

Unfortunately during the first qualifying session Nick Taylor suffered a stub axle failure at the rear of his Mondial. When this happens the wheel is held on only by the brake line which then fails and the wheel comes off. If there was a positive it was that Nick was fine and damage to the car was much lighter than it might have been. The moral here, as has been said before, is crack test your stub axles on a regular basis (especially if you're a hillclimber too).

Race One

This was the only race of the day late on Saturday and it was all about starts. Culver got away OK for once and Evers had a blinder. Swifty was also OK but Jenkins had a poor start and held up others.

At the end of lap one Gary had an enormous lead – almost the length of the start/finish line. Unfortunately the race was red flagged on lap 6 as Marco Pullen was pitched into the barriers by a gearbox with its own views on ratio selection.

The race was re-started and thankfully the second half was a much closer affair. There was fairly close racing through the field particularly between Swifty and Everingham and also Whitman and Simpson. The combined results showed the order Culver, Pogson, Jenkins, Bartholomew, Swift, Everingham, Whitman, Simpson, Anderson, Hanson. Fastest lap of the race and in fact of the week-end went to Culver with a 2.05.77

Race Two

Sunday. A more leisurely day for our lot and time to look around a bit. The HARC had organised this day as a mix of demonstration laps where club members could take their own cars round the track (Italian of course) and races. The races were all health and safety – you know, scutineering, windows up, tight pit lane security, drivers briefings etc. Very boring but the norm for today. The demos however were a complete free for all. Peter Evers & I simply could not believe what we were seeing - no helmets, passengers with short sleeves, short trousers, kids on laps, etc. A packed pit lane with cars screaming in and out amongst the public. Great fun but what a contradiction!

After the demise of Marco Pullen and Nick Taylor plus the absence of William Jenkins a total of just 9 cars took to the grid. At the start it was JP who took the lead from Gary Culver and Simon Bartholomew with a very well placed Tristan Simpson in 4th. Evers was next up but Swifty had an NPB of a start and was 8th out of 9.

Poggy stayed in front until the start of lap 6 when Culver had a lunge up the inside at the end of the main straight which he managed to make stick. He then pulled a bit of a gap on that lap – his fastest of the race. In the meantime Swifty was making steady progress up to 6th by lap 6. Evers had got by Simpson by lap 3.

By lap 7 Swifty had also passed Simpson and was chasing Evers hard. On lap 9 he finally got him and the two were then locked in combat as they had been in race 1. At the flag it was Culver, Pogson, Bartholomew, Swift, Everingham (by 0.3 of a second), Simpson, Whitman, Anderson and Hanson. Some like Bartholomew and Whitman had a slightly lonely race, but this is going to happen with this kind of grid size.

Summary

It was perhaps a little brave to take the fledgling formula classic series overseas. Many drivers do not yet have the required Nat A license. It was also LeMans weekend which lost us Jon Goodwin and also Ascot which lost us Richard Atkinson-Wills. NPB and Geoff Shilton were gutted to miss out due to a very late engine problem. All in all the entry was very disappointing. However all who did go had a great time and everyone agreed that we should repeat the exercise next year. The HARC people were very welcoming and with a 20 car grid it would be a great week-end. So the message is clear – if we want our club to continue racing we have to support it.

Let's have a really good turn out at Snett!

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Taylor's Mondial never made the race

Start of race 2, Poggie in the lead

Whitman leads Hanson and Swifty

Bartholomew had a nice pair of results

The Everingham 328....

...had some good battles with the Swift 308

Culver lead Pogson home in both races

The Zandvoort dunes provide a great racetrack

Culver continued his domination of the 2005 season

Anderson's TRC replica was the only V-12 in the race

Simpson leads Whitman during one of their dices

Pogson and Culver enjoy the adoration!

pics by Chris Schotanus and Nicky Paul-Barron