PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE
RACE REPORT : ROUND 8 : CROFT : 7/8 JULY 2001

It seemed to have been an age since the previous round at Donington but maybe at four weeks it wasn't too long a gap. It was a bit of a shame that only 18 Ferraris turned up for qualifying on the Saturday but nevertheless the quality of entry was excellent.

Having poundered around the circuit all day Friday, it was little surprise to see the two SCS 360/Chs of Ian Hetherington and Simon Bartholomew on the front row of the grid. Then the big surprise - David Ashburn was next, a clear second ahead of the usually class-dominating Gary Culver, both of them of course in their 355/Chs. Between them, in fourth place on the grid, was young Nathan Kinch (360/Ch) and this lot were followed by Peter Lowe (308GT4), Phil Nuttall (355/Ch) and Alan Cosby (F512M).

Surprisingly, and for the first time ever, there were no "O" class cars present.

The Ferrari race was scheduled to take place at 1.00 p.m. and all the races were to be run over 15 minutes rather than in fixed number of laps. However, an earlier heavy accident by an Aston Martin (driven by TV star Rowan Atkinson) had caused a load of barrier damage and delayed all the subsequent starting times. The races were then reduced to 12 minutes each, which meant that the Ferraris only completed eight laps.

Croft's first corner is always a bit of a nail-biter on the opening lap and, not for the first time, the Ferrari field got itself into trouble there. Rod Carman (355/Ch) disapperaed into the gravel, which caused the two 355/Chs of Richard Stevens and Nuttall to make contact and a little further on, new boy Leslie Charneca also got it wrong and ended up against the armco.

Kinch made the best start and in a breathtaking move went around the outside of the front row to take the lead he was to keep, followed by Hetherington, Bartholomew and Ashburn, whilst things were looking difficult for Culver, who had allowed two cars (Ward and Cosby) to get between him and his class rival.

Culver managed to get ahead of Cosby's 512 and was then further helped when Ward retired to the pits with a broken cambelt. This left Culver with a clear road to Ashburn but it was a gap which he was not able to close.

At the front of the field Kinch was quite unchallenged and he took an easy win, with Hetherington almost six seconds behind and Bartholomew a further nine seconds in arrears.

The exciting "C" class confrontation went deservedly to David Ashburn, Culver gave it everything he had got but was not able to make up the small three second gap. This was great racing by two very committed pilots.

Cosby slotted his big 512 into sixth place, a tiny fraction ahead of Peter Lowe, and thereafter came a phalanx of 355/Chs with Nuttall half a second ahead of Avery and similarly Ted Reddick half a second ahead of Stevens.

Duncan McKay's 308GTB had suffered from a smoking engine all weekend and therefore there was no prospect of him getting anywhere near John Swift's similar tipo - the two venerable cars rounding off the finishers ahead of the five DNFs, all of them coincidentally being 355/Chs.

Despite the modest entry there had been some good battles in the field and some extremely quick racing at the front. A disappointing number of cars received damage and it will be a hectic two weeks to get everything ready in time for the blue riband event at the Brands Hatch Ferrari Festival on 21/22 July.

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