This meeting was billed as the return of the Culver and Reeder battles of last year. As often happens in motor racing however the Gods had not read the script. To the usual suspects we could add newcomers David Tomlin (328), Nigel Jenkins (328) and Len Watson (308). We also had the pleasure of welcoming Chris Rea back to club racing. Chris’s 308 GT4 had been prepared for him by Terry Hoyle and was finished in Alan Mann racing colours of gold over red. “Make it look like an Escort” was the instruction apparently. This is personal taste of course but I thought the car looked fabulous.

David Tomlin had been awarded “Driver of the Day” at our' Introduction To Circuit Racing' day at Mallory last year. He has lots of long track karting experience [and is yet another hillclimber - Ed.] but this was his first ever car race. His mount was perhaps the best known of all racing 328s, always known for some reason as Rosie. Yes, a decent car with a decent driver – not a bad combination really. His day didn’t start too well though as the rear window of his 328 broke into a thousand pieces whilst being trailered to the track. I have never seen this happen before. Many hands helped the clear up operation and the only consequence was a bit of a draft.

Qualifying showed Culver from Jenkins (308) Tomlin, Spicer, Reeder, Pullen (Mondial) and Everingham. This was, needless to say, a great performance from David Tomlin with so little experience in the car.

Unlike the Ferrari Open race the track was dry by the time that the classic runners took to the grid. Red lights out and off they went. Well, at least as far as Druids anyway. For some reason Graham Reeder ended up in the gravel at the hairpin which brought out the red flag and a complete restart. My view was obscured by the trees so I can only report the consequence rather than the cause. However it always gets tight on the first lap and sometimes it is easy to just plain run out of room.

The Clerk of the Course sensibly called for a restart from grid positions. Reeder was hauled out of the kitty litter and slowly made his way back to the grid. This all took a while to sort out, but at least we had a proper race again. So, part two, and it was Culver away from Mike Spicer, David Tomlin and Graham Reeder. Unfortunately William Jenkins had a light touch with Mike Spicer off the start. This knocked a tyre valve out on the Jenkins 308 (now in Gulf colours by the way) causing his retirement.

Reeder soon passed Tomlin and was looking pretty racy but on lap 4 he had a spin under brakes on the fast approach to Paddock Hill bend. All quite exciting really and more gravel for the patio. He did at least manage to rejoin which prevented another red flag, but the leaders were by now way up the road.

Culver and Spicer were tied together and these two slowly pulled away from Tomlin. Behind this were Pullen, Sam Whitman, Peter Everingham and Richard Allen. I was expecting a little more from Marco’s Mondial, but perhaps Brands does not suit it. I doubt if Mallory will either, but look out for it at Silverstone on the GP circuit. An improvement I thought from Sam Whitman though.

On lap 8 Mike Spicer managed to get by Gary Culver which is not an experience many of us have had. Pullen, Whitman and Everingham were hard at it too which looked great fun. A little further back there was a group of Rea, Nigel Jenkins, Swift, Moseley and Honnor who were entertaining the crowd.

[roll mouse over pic for caption, click to enlarge]

I have had the great pleasure of watching Gary Culver race over many years as well as racing against him. With the greatest respect to Mike Spicer I couldn’t help feeling that it was only a matter of time before the red 328 got through to lead again. By now of course there were back markers coming into play which is always a feature of this short Indy track. And so it came to pass … Culver leads on lap14 from Spicer then a bit of a gap to Tomlin and the rest.

I have to say it was a cracking race that drew favourable comment from the normally sceptical commentators. There were lots of mid field dices and clean racing. Twenty One laps were covered by the leaders in the allocated twenty minutes. There was only one non finisher (Jenkins) and the rain stayed away – a good result for nearly all concerned. We also have a new lap record at 56.989 thanks to Mike Spicer. Bring on Mallory Park on May 13th – if you need any gravel Graham’s number is 01980 ……

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Before the re-start the field streams through Paddock

Reeder collects yet more gravel for his patio business

Lots of racing throughout the field

Atkinson-Willes came home eighth

RA was seventh on his "home" circuit

A good race for Whitman , who was jumped...

...by Evers near the end

Marco Pullen was fourth

David Tomlin made a great race debut finishing 3rd O/A and winning Class 2

Culver and Spicer battled mightily...

...but Gary came out on top in the end

pics by Simon Cooke. Go to his website to buy hi-res prints