A good entry of 18 Ferraris qualified on Saturday morning, led by serial winner Gary Culver (328 GTB), but behind him things would be quite lively with occasional racer Nicky Paul-Barron (328 GTB) returning and the similar tipos of Graham Reeder, Dave Tomlin and the two Jenkinses, Nigel and William (308 GTB), all expected to feature near the front.

Unfortunately two likely front-runners didn't survive qualifying. Tomlin's 328 spun into a gravel trap but instead of clearing out all the stones first, he drove it back into the paddock where a stone promptly got stuck under the cam belt with dire consequences. Also, William Jenkins' Gulf-coloured 308 broke a rear wheel and the resultant suspension and brake damage could not be repaired in time for the race. We had lost two interesting cars.

The start was a strange affair but no-one could quite explain why. Culver and Paul-Barron duly moved into the lead but behind them the grid was noticeably mixed up. Marco Pullen (328) had moved from seventh to third, with Nigel Jenkins just behind and Chris Rea (308GT4) had done a similar jump from tenth on the grid to fifth, with John Swift (308 GTB) doing even better moving from 13th to sixth. Graham Reeder, conversely, had gone all the way from fourth on the grid back down to seventh, just ahead of the impressive Richard Moseley (308).

At the front Culver and Paul-Barron ran nose to tail, some three or four seconds per lap quicker than the rest of them. Pullen had Nigel Jenkins large in his mirrors and then there came a fabulous dice between Swifty, Reeder, Moseley, Rea, Mark Buckland (328) and Richard Allen (328).

By the sixth lap the two leaders began to lap the field. Culver looked as though he had a little in hand but P-B was giving him no respite.

Pullen looked to be safe in third place ahead of Jenkins and Reeder had recovered from his early race blues to move into a lonely fifth place. The group behind, in the order Swifty, Moseley, Rea and Buckland was still locked together and swapping places, with Richard Allen joining in for good measure. Behind them David Hathaway (328) was only a couple of seconds away.

Then there came a long gap to the unhappy Pauline Goodwin, whose 328 had a race-long misfire which spoilt her excellent ninth place grid position. She managed to fend off Peter Moseley's 328 whilst at the very rear the two ex-hillclimbers, Len Watson and John Day, were having a mighty tussle not to take the wooden spoon. On lap 5 Watson retired with a smoking engine, leaving an exhausted but happy Day to finish his second-ever motor race.

Although he only finished a smidgeon ahead of P-B, Culver never really looked threatened and these two clearly had an enormous amount in hand from the rest and pulled out a gap of more than half a minute by the time the chequered flag came out. Pullen added another excellent third place finish to his win in the Open race earlier and Nigel Jenkins continued to impress with a solid fourth place finish ahead of Reeder, who was having a little bit of an off-day. Richard Moseley also impressed with his good sixth place finish, ahead of the vastly experienced Swifty, and Rea, who is clearly now coming to grips with his Terry Hoyle - prepared GT4.

A good race! Oulton is a tricky circuit and rewards the skillful and brave, and there is little doubt that Culver and NP-B were the class of the field when you look at the winning margin. The two drivers are a good match but the Culver 328 has some years of development behind it and it's not going to be easy for the others to aspire to these heights....