It is always nice to go to Castle Combe for this traditional late summer race. It attracts a really good crowd, the paddock is always buzzing and the hospitality in the Strawford Centre is a welcome watering hole for the Ferrari people.

Although there was some rain around in the area, the day stayed nice and warm and a reasonably good entry of 17 Ferraris had been received, including yet another newcomer - Peter Fisk in his Reeder-prepared Mondial.

Morning qualifying brought no surprises and the top three slots were taken by the 328s of Gary Culver, Graham Reeder and Mike Spicer. Reeder was, of course, the local boy and hoping to do well in front of his home crowd, but Culver put down a pretty stiff marker by being well over a second quicker in practice.

Nick Taylor put his Mondial into fourth place, ahead of the well-driven 308 GT4 of Richard Atkinson-Willes and yet another Mondial - that of John Shirley. As always, it was going to be very tight in the mid-grid group, who were all very closely matched in terms of qualifying pace.

The track was in good shape for the mid afternoon start and a large crowd was filling all the usual spectator spots as the cars lined up for the off. Unusually for him Culver made a good start and led the field into Quarry for the first time, with Spicer, Reeder, Taylor and a fast starting Peter Everingham (328) tucking in behind.

On the second lap Culver, Reeder, Spicer and Taylor flashed by nose to tail but then a gap had already opened out to Everingham, Shirley, William Jenkins (308), Atkinson-Willes and Richard Allen (328).

The first two began to pull away a little and on the third lap Reeder slipped inside Culver to take the lead. Behind these two Spicer was fighting off Taylor and then came a tight group with Everingham, Jenkins, Atkinson-Willes and Shirley all vieing for the same piece of track. After this lot came another nose to tail group led by Allen, who had John Swift (308), Sam Whitman (308) and Fred Honnor (308 GT4) in very close attendance.

But on the fourth lap it all changed at the front when Reeder suddenly spun at the Esses and caused Culver, who was closely following, to virtually come to a halt as he could not figure which way the spinning Reeder car was going to go. In a flash Spicer was past them both to take over the lead, which he kept for three glorious laps.

By then Culver had caught up again and on lap 7 (of 15) he moved smoothly back into the lead. Reeder had also recovered quickly from his spin and on lap 8 he also caught and passed Spicer and immediately began to haul in Culver whilst Spicer fell back into the clutches of Taylor, who began seriously to look for a way past. On lap 11 Taylor actually had the inside line on Spicer going into Camp Corner but then missed a gear and fell back again.

Whilst all this was going on at the front, there was some excellent racing behind as well. Jenkins and Atkinson-Willes were still scrapping furiously over fifth place, followed at a distance by Everingham and Shirley. Then came the inseparable trio of Swift, Allen and Whitman, with Richard Moseley (308) having to fend off Fred Honnor whilst David Hathaway (3238), Fisk and Colin Campbell (246) were having lonelier races at the tail of the field.

Culver duly took the chequered flag but only a second or two ahead of Reeder, whilst Spicer just managed to hang on to his third place ahead of Taylor. Jenkins and Atkinson-Willes were barely separable at the flag and rounded off the top six, with Everingham having the most lonely of races to finish seventh overall.

As always Combe didn't disappoint!

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This time Culver got the drop on Reeder off the start...

...and led him until Reeder slipped through on lap three...

...then Reeder spun, Culver took avoiding action and Mike Spicer led!

Jenkins and Atkinson-Willes had a furious scrap over fifth

Swifty and RA had another race-long battle

Nick Taylor monstered Spicer, but had to settle for fourth

Another Culver/Reeder ding-dong was settled in favour of the former

pics by Simon Cooke