FERRARI formula classic

• Poor ol' PG. She had this immaculate 328 GTB in near-concours condition which was just going to be used in the Ferrari hillclimb series. Then, after Gooders broke his Mondial in testing, the 328 was confiscated and turned into a circuit racer in an all-nighter by the R & D lads and turned up in the paddock on Sunday morning looking like the proper business. The problem now is that it went quicker than the Mondial had ever done - so will PG ever get it back again? Watch this space....
  
  
• As always with the first round of a championship a number of cars were pretty late in getting ready. Marco Pullen's Mondial was delivered straight from the JMH workshop on the Sunday morning, having been the subject of a fair bit of mechanical work but, of more importance to Marco, having a complete stripe re-build. It looked lovely, Marco.
  
  
• The Oulton scales, although busy, were hardly being used to their full capacity as a number of cars were found to be under-weight in pre-race scrutineering. These included Swifty's venerable 308, which ought to know all the weight limits off by heart by now, but the king of the lightweights had to be the NPB 308, which missed the mark by a respectable 55 kilos. There was much scrounging round the paddock of heavyweight objects to use as ballast as it finally tipped the scales at exactly the minimum required.
  
  
• Speaking of Nicky's 308 (well, Geoff Shilton's, actually) this was a real old racer, first appearing in the PMFC back in '87 driven by the then-owner Bob Newton. In '88 his wife Sue took it over and its successes included several front-row grid positions as well as a race win at Zandvoort in '92 - the only time a girlie has won a PMFC race. It was retired and put away in '95 and hadn't turned a wheel since.
  
  
• David Barker was an unfortunate non-starter, having set a great practice time in his screeching 400GT. The heavy beast just chewed through its front tyres as it understeered around and one of them got so badly mangled that a race was out of the question.
  
  
• The night before the race saw a bunch of pilots in an Italian eatery when a waiter rushed in to tell Chris Drake that his 250GTO replica which was parked outside had 'just been nicked'. There was a mad rush outside to catch the thief but the GTO was still parked peacefully there! By 'nicked' he apparently meant 'scraped' and thus it had a little ding on the front light cover as it raced to second in class the next day. Phew.....
  
  
• This driver shall have to remain nameless but he turned up in scrutineering in a pair of overalls so ancient and tatty that not even a corporation dustman would have worn them, and the scrutes turned them down. He then re-appeared at scrutineering having borrowed someone else's but promptly put his old ones back on for the race. He got caught again and was last seen prowling the paddock eyeing up anything on an unguarded coat hanger. He raced - but wearing what?
  

Simon Bartholemew is another ex-PMFC racer to go classic	Breathless Gary rushed about from one race to the next	Swifty's blue 308 did its practice but then got a mysterious misfire	The NW Area Group put on a nice display outside the beer tent

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Fond farewell - PG says so long to her lovely 328......

....which turned up as a racecar the next day

Barker's screeching 400 ate its tyres in practice

Geoff and NPB wonder where the nearest lead mine is

Unperturbed, Mossie kipped through it all in the back of the Carmen Roller

The winners on the podium - the nearest we got to a FPA facility all day....

pics by Simon Cooke & CMdigicams