The unfortunate set of dates in 2010 meant that this was only the second race meeting of the year in England for our racers. Over four months had passed since we last saw them at Snetterton. The response was a good entry of some 25 cars. There were two withdrawals prior to the event and one car didn’t make qualifying due to a mechanical issue, leaving 22 to qualify.

It was great to see no less than four GT4s on the list, as well as four Mondials. The weather was fine for qualifying, and it should have been an exciting and closely fought session. Unfortunately Tris Simpson’s GT4 lost an oil union early on and the session was halted whilst the mess was cleared up. The resultant track condition affected the truncated session, with most drivers only getting a few laps in which to set a time.

The first three were indeed very close. Gary Culver, Ben Cartwright and brother Jim C (all 328s) being covered by just over two tenths of a second. Tomlin, Butler, Taylor (Mondial) , Daddy Cartwright and Wayne Marrs were next up. Fastest of the GT4 army was William Moorwood.
The race, whilst entertaining, was an odd one to watch. The final winner, Gary Culver and second place man Ben Cartwright, finished within a whisker of each other. However there was then a gap of nearly a minute to third placed Chris Butler. So, what was going on?

pics in race order, start here top left

Off the line the first three all seemed to get away well. Jim C then tried to squeeze between Culver and Ben C going into Old Hall corner. The gap wasn’t really there and there was some light contact. Tomlin then spun which delayed the rest of the field a little. Jim C retired later on the first lap due to a gear selector problem, which left Gary and Ben with a clear lead that they extended lap by lap.

There was a gap of around seven seconds between first place Culver and third place Butler at the end of lap one. The remainder of the final gap was simply due to outright pace. The feeling on the day may have been that Gary and Ben had been to the crossroads, and sold their souls to the devil for some extra horsepower, or whizzo damper setting etc. but  a look through the records though tells a slightly different story. Gary’s pace is virtually un-changed from previous years.  He is very consistent through a race and doesn’t make mistakes. So, if he can do a 2.00.34 lap time, then he tends to match this, or go very close to it, all race long. Chris Butler’s fastest lap of 2.04.67 is slower than he has gone before, and many of his laps were in the 2.06s or even 2.07s. Tomlin too, recovering from his spin, only managed a 2.05.02 during the race, again slower than he has been before.  The outstanding drive then was Ben’s. He set a new class, and I believe outright classic lap record of 1.59.575 on lap 2.  His slowest lap of the race was a 2.01.2 which itself matches the old lap record set by Gary in 2008. No doubt about it, we have a new star in formula classic.
Behind Butler, who finished third, was another outstanding Cartwright drive – that of Daddy Nick who, despite a rough-sounding engine, finished an excellent fourth with a long gap until Wayne Marrs in fifth place.

All that aside the most fun was being enjoyed in the mid pack, and indeed further back than that. There were super dices between the GT4s, and the trio of John Goodwin, (Mondial) Richard Squire (328) and Dave Tomlin (328) finished with a second or so of each other. John Swift and Geoff Neal ran closely too, with Pauline Goodwin just behind.  But there were also some with problems and an unusual numbers of cars with misfires. Nick Taylor (Mondial) visited the pits several times and eventually retired, as did Richard Fenny . Ray Ferguson’s Mondial expired in a great cloud of steam just opposite the pits.

Motor racing is often about what might have been. Had Jim C not have been quite so aggressive at the start, and kept going, he surely could have been up with the leaders during the race. David Tomlin too would surely have been close without his spin. This may have inspired Chris Butler to greater things etc. etc. What I feel sure about is that Castle Combe on Bank Holiday Monday will  be a much closer affair.
 

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