The Championship embraced 14 rounds at 11 venues, again ranging from the Badlands of Essex to the beauty of Jersey, and ventured North of the Border to the incomparable Doune. Interestingly, none of these feature in the provisional 2005 calendar, though two new windswept former airfield venues have been added along with the innovation of a Loton Park double-header and a two-lapper at Curborough.

Once again the May Harewood (R3) attracted the biggest entry with 20 drivers and Round 6, Doune, the least with three. The average number of entrants per meeting was 11.6, which though slightly down on last year is still very respectable. 32 drivers took part, with 30 eligible for the Championship. Neither Mike Haigh's nor Christian Mineeff's classic racers qualify because of their P-Zero tyres, although informed thinking considers them to be inferior on the hills than the best List 1A tyres in a meaningful comparison.

Series’ runner-up and hero Richard Prior was the only driver to compete in all of the meetings (for the fourth year running!). Jon Goodwin and Geoff Dark tied for second place on 12 meetings each in the “most regular racer” stakes behind Prior, with Mike Spicer fourth on 11. Nick Taylor competed in 10 events to secure the Championship. Eight stalwarts, the five already mentioned plus Chris Butler, Richard Allen and Series' debutant Marco Pullen, competed in more than seven rounds. Credit is due to them, as they formed the core around which the success of a Championship is built and five of them competed in formula classic too! The average number of meetings per driver was slightly up at 5.4.

In addition to Marco, the FHCC also welcomed Lorraine Hitchman and Gerald McAleer, but lost Tony Willis, Peter Hayman, Keith Maddox, Gregor Steel, Terry Esom, Mark Hargreaves, Steve Target and Kevin Lovelock - not all of them for ever we hope.

The introduction of spread sheet technology to the FHCC (with thanks to Tony Cotton) also allows the easy calculation of meaningless statistics such as the fact that the sum of the best runs of all the competitors at all the meetings was 9242.86 seconds and that it took Nick Taylor just 5.76 minutes to win the Championship (or about 5 pages, Fiona).

The new technology also allows you to play tunes on the PEPs, such as Richard Prior would have needed a 348ts PEP of -0.75% (instead of 0%) to beat Taylor, or Gooders would have needed the 355's to have been +1.75% (instead of +2.75%). A PEP of -1.5% (instead of 0%) would have given the trusty old 328 two wins (in RA's hands) and a PEP of -3.25% would have resulted in two wins for the standard 308 (for Chris England) and the Championship going to Geoff Dark in his modified version.

Whatever - the Championship usually goes to the right man - a quick and determined competitor consistently getting the best out of a well-sorted car, and this year is no exception - congratulations again Nick!

Anyway, here's the stats - make of them what you will.....

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Rd. 3 at Harewood was again the most popular meeting...

...Rd. 6 at Doune the least -shame, because it's easily the most challenging and rewarding hill

Series' runner-up Richard Prior was again the only driver to compete in all 14 rounds

Nick Taylor took in 10 rounds, but had a much better batting average

Gooders took the most outright wins...

...and won the honour of chauffeuring the Website Editor to his Christmas lunch

The 328 was the most popular tipo, and Mike Spicer its most successful operator

Peter Rogerson pedals a 355, which was second in the "most popular tipo" stakes...

...with the 308, here Jos van de Perre's example

The 2004 FHCC must be the only Ferrari championship ever where a Mondial came first...

...an an F40 last!

pics by the usual suspects