Race Report - Rounds 1 & 2 - 2004 Pirelli Maranello Ferrari Challenge - Club Racing Series'

The entry for the first double-header of this year's PMFC was disappointing to say the least. Just nine cars entered, although the quality was undoubtedly good with some well-known names in especially the 360 Challenge class.

There were two separate qualifying sessions, one to count for each of the two races. The first qualifying was on Saturday afternoon amidst some heavy black clouds but fortunately the rain stayed away, although there was some nervous fingering of wet-weather tyres.

Gary Culver (360/Ch) was handily the quickest, ahead of the newly-aquired 360/Ch of David Dove and those of Alan Newton, Graham Reeder and Kevin Riley. Ted Reddick was having his first drive in Phil Burton's spare 360/Ch and brought up the rear of the "S" class. Phil Nuttall was sharing Les Charneca's 355/Ch; they were going to do one race each, and he led the "C" class, ahead of series newcomer Charlie White and the much raced duo of Mike Reeder and his 355/Ch.

The second qualifying session took place on Sunday morning in bright and dry weather and resulted in exactly the same grid position amongst the 360/Chs, with the exception that Reddick did not actually set a time having clouted a bank quite hard on his out-lap. This time Charneca was the quickest of the 355s, ahead of White and Reeder, although the times were relatively close together and boded well for a good scrap in the race itself.

Both races were to be 20 minute affairs so around ten or eleven laps would be completed.

Gary Culver led every one of these from the start, although he was chased hard by Graham Reeder who had a good start from his second row position and got ahead of Dove and Newton by the end of the first lap.

Reddick slotted into fifth place behind this group, having moved ahead of Newton, and then there was a long gap before the nose-to-tail trio of 355s in the order Nuttall, Reeder and White.

At the front Culver gradually dropped Graham Reeder who was beginning to be caught by Dove. On lap five Reddick spun at Lodge Corner, managed to avoid hitting anything and continued in sixth place having lost out to Newton. On the sixth lap, however, there was a nasty incident involving Phil Nuttall, who went steaming into Druids at an impossible speed, having lost his ABS two laps earlier, and went head on into the tyre barriers. He was thankfully uninjured but the car would certainly be a non-starter for the next race.

Whilst Culver cruised serenely round at the front Riley had joined the back of the scrapping Reeder/Dove duo and tried to make a passing move at Knickerbrook but got it wrong and fell back again.

After eleven laps Culver crossed the line as winner, with Reeder and Dove still nose to tail and Riley again catching them after his earlier indiscretion. Newton finished only a couple of seconds in arrears ahead of Reddick, who at least had the consolation of setting a best race lap considerably quicker than he had qualified.

In the "C" class, following Nuttall's accident, Mike Reeder and White had an entertaining duel and White tried on a few occasions to make a move but had to accept his second place in class by just a fraction of a section.

By now the meeting was running pretty late, due to many incidents in the Formula Palmer Audi races, and with a strict 6.30 pm curfew to meet there were fears that the second PMFC race might not take place at all but some hurried work by the organisers managed to get the cars out on to the grid with the proviso that the race would be stopped at 6.27 pm no matter how many laps had been completed.

From his pole position Gar Culver again moved into the lead but this time Dove slotted in behind with Riley and Graham Reeder in the next two positions. In the "C" class Mike Reeder led Charlie White but the latter was clearly looking for a way past.

Maybe Culver was showboating but he did not move away into a distant lead and he led a wonderful train of howling 360s round the track as the evening sunshine came through the trees. There were no position changes amongst the top six but they circulated close together, occasionally pulling out to have a look but no-one could quite make a move on anyone else.

Except, that is, in the "C" class where on the fourth lap White made a brilliant move on Reeder going into the Knickerbrook chicane and smoothly went past into the lead - his first ever win on his first day of circuit racing.

After just five laps the clock struck 6.27 and the chequered flag came out to give Gary Culver his second PMFC win and his third Ferrari win of the day, with Dove, Riley, Reeder and Newton following in a train behind and Reddick this time keeping it all together on the road to finish sixth with, again, a respectable lap time to salvage from the day.

Because of the few runners it had not been the most exciting of races but for anyone who appreciates Ferraris at speed around the track the sight of those 360 Challenges made it all worthwhile......