Report - Round 15 - 2006 Pirelli Ferrari Hillclimb Championship - Club Racing Series'

The last hill climb of the PFHCC season was at Longleat in Wiltshire, home of the famous lions (and other animals of course), but now playing host to our prancing horses – luckily for us we were separated by some high fences!

Some rain had fallen in the night and the day dawned quite grey with a full cloud covering. The track was wet and slippery as a result – not helped by a large quantity of mud following the air races held here a short while ago [eh? - Ed].

The large Ferrari contingent was reduced slightly by the non-appearance of John Marshall and (for a time) Chris Butler – he arrived very late from his B & B in true Charlie White fashion. Charlie for a change was there with plenty of time to spare - maybe there was a temporary hole in the space/time continuum.

The Ferrari field was F355 rich as six of this tipo had entered including Mark Buckland who had brought along his new purchase, a beautiful GTS. Second most common tipo on the day was the 348 with four showing. The remainder, just a smattering of 308s, a single 328, Mondial and 246 of Colin Campbell – nice to see him back with us, his Dino repaired following fire damage sustained in a formula classic incident.

First practice started and the wet road left most Ferraris struggling to get off the line as traction was very limited. After one or two fishtailing incidents, including a spin by Peter Wilson (348) most Ferraris toured up the hill in leisurely 50+ sec. times except for David Hathaway (348) who was keen to show us how much he had learned in formula classic and shot up in a 49.24 second run.

During the interval everyone hoped the sun which was just breaking through the clouds would dry the track sufficiently to allow a few of us to catch David Hathaway. During this period Richard Allen (355 GTB) regaled us with his stories of his trip down to the event, apparently he spent 3½ hours on the M25 and 7¼ hours to reach Longleat. Richard, go buy a map! [He's got one, but it's from 1951 - Ed.].

Second practice and things were much better although the road was still damp up through the trees after the hairpin. 0 - 64 feet times tumbled and fastest up the track was Chris Butler (355) who had obviously had more sleep than the rest of us and was looking to exploit the changing track conditions with a 44.17 was well ahead of Richard Prior (348ts) our outgoing champion who was on a 46.06.

Tomlin (355), Allen, Taylor (348GTC) and White (355) all recorded mid 47 second times, Hathaway knocked a half second off his first practice and Holman got into the 40’s with a 49.85.

During lunch the sun came out very hot and it felt like a July day. The track dried out mostly and we all looked forward to the afternoon’s racing. The first of the timed runs started. David Tomlin did his level best to stop Chris Butler, really pushing his 355 to take a 43.92. Chris pipped him with a 43.28. This was followed by Charlie White on all the fours, 44.44. Prior, Allen and Taylor did not get a look in, Charlie having problems with 0 - 64 foot with a huge 3.01 seconds to get away. Everyone else was strung out behind this group. Struggling a bit with his 348 was Peter Wilson who spun again at the right hander before Prospect.

On his second run Butler, the leader all day, knocked a huge ¾ second off to record a 42.58 and take the win. David Tomlin also tried hard to improve, knocked a similar time off, to come up with a 43.25, a good time.

White, Prior, Allen and Taylor all improved their times on this run. David Hathaway did extremely well to get a 46.55 on his last run and took 7th place on scratch. John Day in the 328 also got in a 46 second run after a few slides during the day. He is now showing some good speed in his second year of Ferrari hillclimbing.

Barrie Wood kept half a second ahead of Mark Hargreaves in the GT4, although he was a good 1½ seconds off his best here. Andrew Holman was improving all day until the Mondial’s clutch said enough on the last run so he had to be content with 12th position. Peter Rogerson followed him in his 355 GTS, with Peter Wilson finally getting a time of 53.15 – he enjoyed the day immensely even after several “moments”. Colin Campbell brought up the rear in the little Dino

So that’s it for 2006 bar the excellent end of season dinner organised by Sally Maynard-Smith. We have a new champion in Nick Taylor and 2007 to look forward to. Will the 355s take over? Will Gooders keep Lucy's fabulous minus 8% PEP? Watch this space...