It’s always a great pleasure to go to Castle Combe. Despite being an old airfield circuit it exudes charm and friendliness and is a world away from the concrete bleakness of Silverstone and Donington, let alone Rockingham! The spectators love it too, and they line the banks in great numbers for even the smallest clubbie. Camp Corner remains one of the best in Britain and from the bank there it’s possible to see most of the circuit.

The drivers like it too and there’s always been a good Ferrari entry at every race over the many years that the various FOC series’ have been coming here. On (August) Bank Holiday Monday 17 classic racers gathered in the paddock with all the front runners present. Although most money was resting on Gary Culver’s shoulders, with his modified 328 the class of the field, local expert Graham Reeder (328) could easily be a threat, with the ever improving Nigel Jenkins and Dave Tomlin (also in 328s) also likely to be towards the sharp end.

Qualifying at 10 in the morning was on a nicely dry track with friendly weather all around, and a huge crowd was gathering on the banks – the biggest I have ever seen at Combe. Very soon it became apparent that Culver was just playing with the rest of them, he only did 5 laps and put it on pole over a second ahead of second place man Nigel Jenkins who completed twice that number of laps. Tomlin in ‘Rosie’ was next and then there followed a tight group with Atkinson-Willes (GT4), Reeder and William Jenkins (308), before another excellent effort from Club Sec Peter Everingham in his 328GTS who lead another tight group with John Swift (308), Marco Pullen (328) and Richard Moseley (308) following next. Towards the rear of the grid (but not at the back) was hillclimber John Day (328) having his very first circuit race with the hugest grin on his face.

Unfortunately William Jenkins became a non-starter with an irreparable oil leak on his 308 that even the QV boys couldn’t fix, whilst Graham Reeder put his (relatively) low grid position down to floppy front dampers that were soon screwed up really tight to try to improve matters for the afternoon’s race.

It was a very busy race meeting with a number of Porsche and Intermarque and Special GT races, and there were quite a number of other Ferraris in action. Charlie White has written in to say that he won the AMOC Intermarque race in his 355/Ch, the first time ever that a Ferrari has won an Intermarque race (Anne – is that so?). We all watched it of course and he drove ever so well, continuing his good run of results with this ex-Damax 355. (Click here for some pics).

There were a number of incidents in some of the early races and because of all the delays the classic race was shortened from 15 to 12 laps and it was just after 3pm that the Ferraris lined up on the grid. As the lights started going out there were a couple of "optimistic" starters; second-row man Tomlin snuck up to just about the front row and, further back, David Hathaway started off before the lights went out and jumped from 13th to 9th! Both were docked a 10-sec penalty but neither knew this until the race was over.

Tomlin duly shot into the lead, followed amazingly by Atkinson-Willes, Jenkins, Culver having his usual leisurely getaway (or Gulliver as the commentator proceeded to call him), Richard Moseley and Everingham. Tomlin gamely hung on at the front under great pressure from Jenkins and Culver whilst A-W dropped back to fourth. On the fourth lap Jenkins found a way past but then immediately spun his new lead away at Bobbies and dropped down to fifth.

This put Tomlin back in the lead (on the road) again from ‘Gulliver’ who had A-W right on his tail. Great stuff, but then it went wrong as A-W got the tail out just a little too far at Camp and clobbered the barriers to go no further. The GT4 was left in a dangerous position so the Safety Car came out to allow recovery crews to remove it.

For three laps the field followed the Safety car round, in the order Tomlin, Culver, Reeder going much better than in qualifying, a recovering Jenkins, Richard Moseley, and the dicing Swift and Everingham. Behind them was Pullen, Chris Rea (GT4), Hathaway, Fred Honnor (GT4), Peter Fisk (Mondial) and the rest. The Safety Car and the consequently tight pack of cars was bad new for Tomlin because his 10-sec penalty would now drop him back a long way in the results.

As the Safety Car came in there were three laps of racing left. Tomlin’s ever-widening 328 was making it difficult for Culver to get past but eventually he simply drove round the outside of him at the Esses on the very last lap. Tomlin nearly got him back at the final corner as Culver inexplicably slowed, perhaps ever the showman, but by less than half a second Culver shot across the line for the win. Tomlin’s penalty would put him back into 7th place, handing over second to Reeder by the narrowest of margins from Jenkins, with Mosely, Swift and Everingham in 4th, 5th and 6th. Great racing, and the crowds loved it.

Marco Pullen had a quietish race to finish 8th just behind the demoted Tomlin, with Rea, Honnor, Peter Mosley and Fisk just seconds apart whilst the penalised Hathaway would have been at the head of this bunch had it not been for his penalty. Mosley was subsequently docked a 1-sec penalty for passing Fisk under the yellow, which put him behind again. Len Watson and debutant John Day wound up the remained of the field, just a few seconds behind.

It was a shame that the Safety Car incident had interrupted the race and effectively turned it into two halves. But the leisurely lap times of ‘Gulliver’ made you think that he had something in hand over the others and perhaps he was hanging back. Behind him, however, is a very tightly backed bunch of drivers who will be great fun to watch over the remaining races of the season – Nigel Jenkins, Graham Reeder, Dave Tomlin will all have their day, and it would be interesting to see Atkinson-Willes in a quicker car!

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Always a great crowd at Combe enjoying the racing

More early traction action

Watson & Day - yet more hillclimbers supporting the circuit racing

Nigel Jenkins leans on his 328 in an effort to stay in fromt of RA-W

The "A" stood for "amazing" for quite a while, here he leads Culver!

Graham Reeder had to fight his way through the field after a poor qualifying

When the music stopped, Richard Moseley was fourth

Swifty and Evers enjoyed a race-long dice

David Tomlin and good ol' "Rosie" lead Culver in his "Stealth" 328 - at least on the road

The Safety Car was deployed after RA-W's GT4 eventually fell out of the window

Graham Reeder fought off Nigel Jenkins to come home second

Culver (right) eventually did Tomlin

Gulliver's travels - and you think the racing's dangerous!

pics by CMdigicams & Simon Cooke. Go to the latter's website to buy hi-res prints