Round 10 of the Ferrari Hill climb Championship brought the series to Curborough, three miles north of Lichfield. Curborough is a sprint circuit where apparently it usually rains. However, today it looked as if the rain would hold off to hopefully give the eight competing Ferraris a good run on the 900 yard track. There was a varied turn out of tipos, ranging from John Dobson’s GT4, through the usual 308s and 348s to Chris Butler’s F355.

First surprise of the day occurred when Nick Taylor, usually in his Mondial 3.4t, arrived in a borrowed BMW 2.0 litre diesel turbo! Unfortunately Nick had suffered a broken clutch the previous Thursday whilst out in the Mondial and the BMW was the only manual car he could lay his hands on. As he only lives a few miles down the road it would’ve been a wasted opportunity to miss the event so he took up the challenge in his BMW to familiarise himself with the track. The biggest challenge facing Nick was apparently hearing the sound of the engine revs!

After nine rounds of the Championship the title was clearly going to go down to the wire and today would take both Richard Prior in his 348ts and Nick Frost in his 348GTC one step closer to the finishing line. Richard has put together a string of impressive performances this year pushing the car to its limits. He has been leading the championship since round 2 back in April but Nick has steadily been catching Richard up and today was his chance to take the lead of the Championship.

The first practice run saw Nick and Richard split by just 0.16 of a second in Nick's favour. However, to his own surprise, it was Chris Butler (F355GTB) who headed the field with a time of 36.70. Chris had never even seen the track before and clearly was thrilled to be quickest and ahead of the title contenders on this first run. More than one more experienced competitor could not recall a driver setting the fastest time after their first run before. These three were closely followed by Mike Spicer in his 308GTB and setting his fastest time of the day with a time of 37.39. Queuing for the bacon sandwich that delayed his run must have helped the adrenalin and contributed to this quick time. The 308s of Geoff Dark and Brian Jackson were next with John Dobson (308GT4) impressively ahead of Barry Wood in his 308 GTS.

The second practice run gave the show of the day for the watching crowd. No doubt spurred on by the times in the first run, the quickest three were all pushing their cars hard. Nick Frost, first to run, shaved over a second off his first practice time in a run that was obviously pushing his 348GTC to the limit on the slippery track. Chris Butler, full of adrenalin from his competitive first practice time, pushed a little bit too hard and had to abort at the chicane, bouncing across the grass to a failed run. Richard Prior produced some fantastic entertainment for the watching crowd as he also pushed too hard and spun in the identical place. He was still pulling the grass out of the air ducts 20 minutes after the run was over!

During the lunchtime break Nick Frost attracted some attention from the officials over the decibel output of his 348GTC. The officials were suggesting that the fantastically tuneful sound emanating from the V8 was perhaps recording slightly over the maximum allowable levels. Sadly, he was told that he may not be eligible to compete again at Curborough with the same exhaust. These findings were a mystery to Nick as he’d incurred no problems over the last two seasons when competing at any other events. As the saying goes…..If its too loud maybe you are too old!

It was then down to the serious business of the first of the afternoon’s official runs. The grey weather had cleared by this time and the sun was beginning to warm the track significantly. John Dobson (308GT4) started the ball rolling by setting his fastest time of the day with a 39.67, just short of his best time here at Curborough. Barry Wood (308GTS) continued to improve and was keen to make sure that he finished ahead of Nick Taylor in his stand-in BMW dirty diesel. Nick was proving pretty adept at getting respectable times in the borrowed motor and was perhaps relieved not to have to attempt competing in his wife’s Land Rover Discovery as first thought! Probably not quite as relieved as his wife was! Brian Jackson, in his lovely Giallo 308GTB, continued to improve over his practice times with a 38.56 and Geoff Dark (308GTB) improved upon his earlier practice times to get his best time of the day at 37.25. This was a good performance, just short of his best ever here, though he felt that he could beat this benchmark if he could have more faith in the performance of his tyres. Mike Spicer in his 308 GTB put another solid performance together to set his best official run time of 37.47. Mike has been consistently quick and competitive all season and this time consolidated further his well deserved current third place in the Championship standings. Sadly, Mike’s recent appearance in ‘Ferrari News’ did not lead to the steady stream of autograph hunters he was expecting.

Nick Frost (348 GTC) threw down the gauntlet amongst the title contenders with a quick 36.47, this being quarter of a second faster than Richard Prior’s 36.72 in his now grass free 348ts. Sensibly, Richard was not pushing at full tilt as he registered second place in this first official run. After his own excursion across the green stuff, Chris Butler (F355GTB) also eased off a little in this first run to put a time on the board of 37.04 and third place.

And so to the final timed run. Barry Wood (308 GTS) was pleased to confirm his place in the finishing order ahead of Nick Taylor by eclipsing the BMW by just two hundredths of a second in a time of 40.78. It showed that Barry was learning about his car and the track as he managed to record quicker times as each run passed. John Dobson (308 GT4) was unable to beat his previous time and Geoff Dark (308 GTB) also could not improve on his first official run. Brian Jackson did improve his time by bringing his 308GTB home in a time of 38.40, another driver to be quicker in each successive run. Mike Spicer (308 GTB) lost almost two seconds as he got it wrong at the chicane in his last run but he had already done enough to secure fourth in class.

The stage was now set for the championship to take a new twist. Nick Frost (348 GTC) drove in his own words ‘a perfect lap’ to set a superb time of 35.53 ensuring he took the class win and maximum points. Chris Butler (F355 GTB) improved on his first official run by over a second to set a time of 35.91and clinch second in class. According to Ferrari history, Nick and Chris became only the second and third drivers respectively to record times of sub 36 seconds here at Curborough. Despite a hard push and some excellent car control exiting the final corner Richard Prior (348ts) could only improve on his first official run by 0.01 of a second and therefore finished in third place.

Nick’s maximum score meant that the Championship had now swung in his favour and he goes into round 11 with a slim lead over Richard.

But the fat lady is not singing just yet!

Click here to return to the Ferrari Hill Climb Championship page.

A relatively small but select entry of Ferraris gathered

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly enter the paddock. You decide....

Prior goes for a practice spin, he wasn't the only one

Queueing for the start line

Barry Wood improved on each of his runs

Dobson's GT4 in the top corner

Lovely yellow 308 of Jackson gets hard leant upon

Spicer's 308 consolidated third in the Championship table

Geoff Dark threatened to upset the front order

Prior threw everything at it to keep his championship hopes alive

Butler excelled on his first Curborough visit with second place

Frost had to put it on the edge to get this win

Er, this is Taylor's diesel BMW

pics by Alan Jackson, Nick Prior & Graham Easter