PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE

• It's happened at this circuit before but the organisation of the weekend was fairly shambolic. Even the paddock layout was the cause for much debate amongst officials and the neat little reception facility in that hut on the outside of the circuit had been moved somewhere into the back streets of Francorchamps. No surprise that numerous drivers were seen wandering round trying to find the dratted thing. A dilapidated paddock and rather disappointing entries added to the somewhat downbeat aura of the place. The circuit however remains as fantastic as ever and well worth the annual pilgrimage.
  
  
• The yellow DRM team turned up with a bunch of lovelies, canapés and Champagne and suddenly acquired a lot of paddock friends. No-one was quite sure what spec the Wilcox 360 was in because it has been variously described (on their website and PR stuff) as a 360 GT and 360 Challenge. It certainly looked like a Challenge and Adam's best race laps were only a second or so quicker than PMFC runners Attard and Sowerby, although in Q. he dragged out a laptime 3 secs quicker than the others.......... The team has big ambitions and is already talking of a 360 N-GT and leasing a Prodrive 550. Shades of Sam Li ........
  
  
• Speaking of lap times, the old Gary Culver 360/Ch record of 2:42.7 was re-set by Sowerby by almost five seconds. Where did all that come from? In the European 360s top man Ange Barde was down in the 2:35s but the Group 2 racers, the so-called Gentlemen's Class, had a quickest time of 2:38. Our old chum Oliver Morley, now racing as part of the European Championship, did a 2:40.9 so he would have been struggling a bit against the quicker PMFC drivers.
  
  
• At times it looked like a dodgem track with the amount of damage caused by cars hitting solid objects and each other. In private testing Attard and Back had already had their 360s off the road and Kevin Riley bashed his so comprehensively he had to use Phil Burton's spare car for the rest of the weekend. That also got bashed in Race 1. David Back had three separate goes at the scenery and Furness, Woodman, McCormick, Newton & Nuttall all suffered dings and dents. Particularly worrying was the Attard/Sowerby incident in Race 2 which happened at that particularly precarious climb up from Eau Rouge.
  
  
• PHR stalwarts Seymour, Marriott, Mewies and Cook started off at 8pm on Friday in a Vectra from the UK, went through the Chunnell, arrive in Spa at the crack of dawn, watched a day's racing and then set off back to Blighty in the evening. They got home around 3am on Sunday morning. They say they enjoyed it. Sounds like the journey from Hell
  
  
• Effort of the weekend has to be Ted Reddick's hire of the Graham Reeder 355/Ch which was sitting quietly in the wilds of Wiltshire with nothing to do. When his own 355 fizzled out in Saturday qualifying (yes, Ted, an oil light means switch everything off NOW) he got on the phone and Neil Reeder left home at 4am on Sunday with the 355 hurled on to the back of a trailer. He made it to Spa by mid morning and, starting from the back of the grid, Ted came through to win the "C" class and extend his Championship lead.
  
  
• The Belgian Ferrari Owners' Club, which had on previous occasions ignored the event, joined in this time. No doubt as this was an official Ferrari/Maserati organised event and the Belgian Club is run out of the Factory-owned Belgian importer they were nudged into putting on a good display of cars, in which they certainly succeeded. Amongst numerous F40s, F50s and 360 Stradales were also three Enzos and a couple of 612 Scagliettis. Even the course safety car was a 550.
  
  

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Organise a drink-up in a brewery? Not necessary if you've got this

DRM 360 was actually a 5 litre twin-turbo with nitrous injection - but no-one noticed

Swifty tries to remember what these are for

Newton was one of many who bashed it

The PHR boys were gagging to organise stuff - shame they weren't allowed

Ted Reddick can ignore an oil light, but he's certainly a trier

There was some fairly reasonable kit at Spa

Maybe a new job for Hethers?

pics by Paul/Fotografia Corse, Simon Cooke, & Mick Marriott