The Club's racers always enjoy going to the August Bank Holiday meeting at Castle Combe. It's a friendly circuit with a nice paddock, always a good crowd of spectators, and the viewing is relatively easy from the various embankments that line the north side of the circuit. It's possible to see the cars (well, the roof tops anyway) most of the way round.

The Club members clearly enjoy it as well. From having just a small handful at concrete venues like Donington and Silverstone, at Combe there were over 90 who bought themselves a lunch-ticket at the Club's hospitality unit situated in the Strawford Centre in the paddock.

The entry was a little down on previous years with 16 Ferraris turning up for practice, but all the leading lights were there including Gary Culver making one of his rare appearances. It promised to be an interesting race.

The 10.20am practice start was a little tough on some but the track was nice and dry and it was no surprise to see man-of-the-moment Jim Cartwright (328) take an excellent pole but it was not expected that the somewhat race-rusty Culver would be right up there with him, just 0.4 secs behind. This season's revelation Nigel Jenkins (328) was a second behind in third spot but had Nicky Paul-Barron (328) right with him on the second row. Relative newcomer Ted Pearson was next with his QV prepared 328 GTS, despite being stuck in 4th gear, and Wayne Marrs's 328 completed the top six.

By the mid-afternoon start it was nice and warm for the 20 minute race, which was going to enable about 15 laps. As the cars formed up on the grid waiting for the lights to go out Jim Cartwright started to roll forward from his pole position and then put his brakes on just as the rest of them went. This concertinaed the front of the field and Nicky P-B jinked to the left of the front row and so, three abreast, they headed towards the Quarry braking area. There, a fully locked-up Ted Pearson arrived in a cloud of tyre smoke into the midst of the leading pack and they all scattered to avoid contact.

But nobody touched anybody and as they blasted past at the end of lap one it was Culver in the lead from Cartwright, Jenkins, Pearson, Marrs, Nicky P-B, and (where did he come from?) Nick Cartwright all the way from 10th on the grid.

Very quickly the leading trio of Culver, Cartwright and Jenkins pulled out a gap over the others, with Pearson leading the next group ahead of Marrs and Nicky P-B.

On the fourth lap Jenkins had an alarming brake failure as a front calliper broke, but he brought it all to a halt at the Tower chicane and retired on the spot. Culver was still hanging on at the front but had Cartwright just inches away, both 328s on the very edge. Behind, Nicky P-B was making up positions, getting past Marrs on lap 4 and moving into fourth when Jenkins retired, with Pearson next up the road ahead of him.

At the front the inevitable happened when on lap 11 Jim Cartwright finally slipped by Gary Culver, but was not able to pull away, and also Ted Pearson was being caught by NP-B who took third spot two laps later.

But there was more drama at the front. Culver hung on to the back of Cartwright and on the penultimate lap dived up the inside of Tower but the two cars made gentle contact. Culver's left rear tyre was cut and he had no choice but to park it up right behind Jenkins' abandoned yellow328. This left Jim to take a clear win but he had certainly had to work hard for it; NP-B was thus elevated into a great second place with Pearson just a second or so behind in third and Marrs in fourth.

All this activity at the front left everyone a bit breathless but there was also some excellent racing going on behind. Nick Taylor's Mondial finished in fifth a few seconds behind Marrs, and Tim Walker and Peter Fisk had good races as well in sixth and seventh spots.

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Click here for the results of both races.

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