This event was to consist largely of local lads, which was not by design. Others had entered, or had tried to, but for some reason the lists filled up too quickly and most of the Ferraris were left languishing on the reserve list.Other clubs faired better with the TVRs having 16 entries and the Matty Lotus lot over 20, begging the question what had gone wrong with the PFHC entries?

Geoff Dark in his newly acquired 355 led the entry, with Barrie Wood (355) Peter Wilson (348), John Marshall (328) Colin Campbell (246GT) and Andrew Holman (348) making up the rest of the class for this horizontal round 11, but all would be battling for reduced points because of the small entry.

I like these sprint tracks, they seem easier to learn being more WYSIWYG [what you see is what you get] compared to some of those hills that seem to be sadistically designed to try and throw you off into a tree or the like. These sprints have no blind corners or rock walls, just plenty of grassed run off room between the odd gravel trap. But Hethel is a long track at 2km with some fast straights and as such favours the faster tipi.

After much hard work, Geoff Dark had sorted his ex Silverstone Red Letter day 355. He was still unsure he could track it a couple of days before the event, having found the handling and running to be wildly off form on anything other than a straight. This was tracked down to two problems: fiorstly, the rev limiter had been reset for the track days to 7,000rpm. A trip to the workshop that originally screwed the car down led to new chips installed, returning the car to original. Another change had been to the traction control, and once Geoff got the hang of turning the switch in the central consol running was returned to normal.

The morning start was leisurely and we decided to leave it until later to go out all together for our first runs. Timing problems caused a small delay, this was compounded by the local farmer parking his truck as near to the finish line as possible. Rumour had it that he was making some sort of environmental protest, I asked around and allegedly he was in dispute with Lotus who wanted to put up some wind turbines that he was unhappy about, though ironically Lotus were presumably attempting to offset their carbon footprint. The clerk judged him not to be a danger, as long as we were all careful, so after half an hour we were off.

Everyone passed the noise test including, much to his chagrin, Holman’s 348 that scored a miserly 99dB(A), and then we were off. Wood cruised round in 88.22 secs, followed by old hand Marshall setting out his stall with an 84.42. Wilson rightly stated he “could do better” with a 94.17 whist Campbell had missed walking the course and clocked 116. 52, commenting he “got lost”. Dark was to drive his new 355, with matching number plates, in anger for the first time and we all intrigued to see what would be the result. He managed 86 dead but believing he had gone faster, whilst Holman remembered his way around from last year with an 83.82. P2 saw improvement all round. Barrie enjoyed two runs due to being red flagged and consequently knocked nearly 3 seconds off his time.

Lunch was taken early, before P2 was finished, as a tyre wall needed rebuilding following a close encounter with an Impreza. This allowed us to compare other bumper scrapes, Geoff had put a hole in his whilst parking his increased girth in the garage whilst people realised I had only bought a grey car to match the copious and matching gaffer tape covering my front end, following an incident at the Silverstone track day.

And then came the competitive runs. Wood was very happy to be in front of Dark and this continued, Barrie improved marginally by a tenth whilst Geoff did go quicker at 84.52, but was penalised 5 seconds for knocking over a cone. He hadn’t remembered this, but a new bumper stripe proved conclusive forensic evidence. The rest of the field saw steady improvements on the warm track even though Marshall was still unhappy with his mismatched tyres, having fitting new Toyos to his rear end. He described them as “wobbly” leaving him “hanging on for grim death”.

Wood had “high hopes for the final run” after steadily improving to 85.31 even though admitting when pushed to having had “a few unforced errors” during his drive. Wilson had “given up hopes of a win” despite improving another second and a half. Campbell was reminding us of his busy life, “making hay on Friday, out racing with the Bentley club on Saturday and at Hethel today”, but still managed to knock another second off. Holman wore a grin from ear to ear with an 81.61 run as well as the fastest first 64ft time of the day of 2.48 secs at a venue where tyre warming is not allowed.

Time was marching on, and the weather remained a little too warm to be wearing race suits for long, as we waited in another queue for the track to be cleared after another gravel trap incident (newly refurbished for this year by the way). Barrie Wood consolidated his 3rd place with a 84.93, making the long journey from the West Country all worthwhile. John Marshall slowed slightly to 84.50 but his previous run put him in a solid second place. Peter Wilson was extremely happy to break the 90 second barrier with an 89.58. Colin Campbell needed a push start at the line, following a starter motor failure, but managed to keep the engine going until he left for Gloucestershire [obviously using the latest McLaren technology - Ed]. Geoff Dark finished the day as he had started on a 86 dead, although the slow start time, a second down on previous starts, made him wonder if he had rolled over the line early. And finally, Andrew Holman improved his time slightly to cross the line in 81.52, making Hethel’s top points a wonderful birthday present for him!

Footnote
Unfortunately a condition of racing at this venue is that no photography or spectators are allowed by hosts Lotus, for fear of capturing details of their latest creation.

Click here for the results.

Click here for the Championship positions.

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

USAF 389th Bombardment Group (Heavy) 'The Sky Scorpions' flew B24 Liberators like this one from Hethel

Thanks to them and others, the runways are used for more pleasurable purposes today

pics by Google Earth & unknown