Le Champion!

So this was it - the final showdown at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit to see whether Ian Hetherington or Alan Cosby would become the new Maranello champion. The other classes had already been decided, with Gary Culver taking a dominant win in the "O" class and Graham Reeder accumulating enough points to win the Challenge class.

The event was a double-header and attracted a reasonably classy field, all thankful to get away from the UK's petrol crisis. A few non-starters marred the grand occasion, notably John Seale, Andy Christopher and Andrew Micheals, whilst Ben Orza failed to find sufficient fuel to get him to a ferry.

Thursday and Friday had three separate free practice sessions for the Ferraris and, as expected, the F50 of Hetherington and the F512M of Cosby were generally at the head of the time sheets. The Challenge class promised to be particularly interesting with Nicky Paul-Barron, David Ashburn, Graham Reeder and Phil Nuttall all in contention, but it was then a great disappointment when Ashburn had to withdraw with a broken gearbox.

The two qualifying sessions on Saturday brought even quicker lap times as everyone got used to the somewhat point and squirt circuit with its succession of straights followed by hairpin bends which placed heavy loads on braking systems. Hetherington finally took pole ahead of Cosby and Phil Nuttall, who surprisingly became the quickest of the Challenge cars. NP-B was in fourth slot, followed by Graham Reeder, Peter Lowe (308GT4) and Shaun Powell (F355/Ch). Gary Culver was quickest of the "O" class, some three seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Richard Stevens, both in F355s.

Race One

The scheduled start for the 14-lap race was 11.15 a.m. but a thick blanket of fog lay over the circuit and caused more than an hour's delay. As a result each race was shortened and in the case of the Ferraris the distance was reduced to 10 laps.

At the start the pole-sitting F50 hesitated and held up the left side of the grid, whilst Alan Cosby and Nicky Paul-Barron went into the lead on the long uphill drag from the startline. By the end of the lap Hetherington was through into second and latched on to Cosby's tail, with NP-B just a few feet behind and a gap already opening to Nuttall, Reeder and Lowe.

On lap three Hetherington squeezed by Cosby for the lead and began to edge slightly ahead. Similarly, Cosby pulled away from NP-B who had a squabbling pair of Challenge cars following him in the order Nuttall and Reeder. By the sixth lap, however, the exhaust manifold of Nuttall's 355/Ch began to disintegrate, causing enough of a power loss to allow Reeder through into fourth spot.

And then drama struck the second placed Alan Cosby. Under heavy braking into one of the corners the left front ball joint snapped on the F512M and pitched him into a gravel bed and retirement.

As he crossed the line to win the race, Hetherington finally secured the "S" class championship and with it the coveted Maranello Trophy. Nicky Paul-Barron was delighted with his elevation into second place and he was followed home by Graham Reeder and the awful-sounding car of Phil Nuttall. Gary Culver sailed into an untroubled win in the "O" class in front of Richard Stevens and Andrew Duncan (348tb).

Race Two

As the Ferraris assembled for the afternoon race it suddenly became apparent that Alan Cosby's car was still missing. His suspension breakage had been repaired by the Shiltech boys but there was no sign of his car in the assembly area. The minutes ticked by and just as the field was being released on to the track his Ferrari suddenly shot around the corner from the paddock and joined the rest - an elusive ignition problem meant the engine had not wanted to fire up and it was only at the last minute that the problem was traced and rectified.

But worse was to befall the other Shiltech car, the 308GT4 of Peter Lowe. As he was about to join the track a plug blew out of the engine, taking with it the cylinder head threads and making it a definite non-starter. Another unfortunate withdrawal was Nuttall's 355/Ch, whose broken exhaust manifold could not be repaired.

At the start Hetherington's F50 again hesitated and Cosby set off into the lead chased by the F50 and the four F355/Chs of Reeder, NP-B, Powell and Mike Reeder, with Gary Culver being next up at the head of the "O" class runners.

There were exciting battles throughout the field. For the first eight laps Hetherington closely shadowed Cosby, both cars a blast of sound as they screamed up the pit straight with the noise echoing from the tall grandstands on either side. Reeder and NP-B had an equally frantic battle for third and fourth places and brother Mike Reeder was just inches ahead of Gary Culver. Just behind there was another nose to tail convoy headed by Stevens, John Taylor (328GTB) and John Swift (308GTB).

At the front Hetherington's pursuit faltered as the brakes on the F50 faded and this left Cosby to secure the win. On the last lap Hetherington was also passed by Paul-Barron and demoted to third place overall but his championship lead was secure.

The Challenge class was equally exciting and it took Paul-Barron five laps of hard driving to find a way past Reeder, who then gradually slipped back into the clutches of Powell but managed to hold him off until the finish line, which they crossed in fourth and fifth places.

Sixth overall was the "O" class winner Culver who finally got the better of Mike Reeder, with Richard Stevens rescuing eighth place by less than a second from John Swift, who finished third in the "S" class.

With no less than 10 drivers standing on the podium it brought a fitting end to an excellent day's racing and hard fought season. It was a shame that someone had to loose out in the chase for the Maranello Trophy but perhaps it was fitting that Ian Hetherington finally won it after losing to John Pogson by just one point in the previous season.