PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE

• This year’s event at Zolder broke a number of Ferrari records: new lap records, blisteringly hot weather, on the Saturday the temperature in the shade was a savage 39°C, with a track temperature of 53°C. Sadly, the Ferrari entry was an all-time low of seven cars and only six started. Doesn't look good for the PMFC next year, unless drastic action is taken - and soon.

• Of George Christopher, the seventh member of our thin line-up, there was no sign. Several calls to his home, work and mobile failed to solicit a reply and the pitbox he had reserved (to also house brother Andrew’s Porsche) remained ominously empty all day.

• Before the event started, on the Thursday there was the opportunity to take some additional testing, which Kevin Riley (360 Ch) and Witt Gamski (F355 Ch) decided to do. Witt probably wished he had arrived a day later: the rear of his car caught fire when a sealing bung in the oil feed to the gearbox came out and oil sprayed onto the hot exhaust. He continued round the course looking in vain for a fire marshal and then, realising he was his own fireman, finally stopped and extinguished the flames with his hand-held cylinder. He then drove the car back to the pits, albeit without any lubricant in the ‘box. You will have already guessed the final result – a completely snookered gearbox.

• The following day there were two 20-minute general test sessions. Mike Furness brought his F355 Challenge car into the pits, complaining of overheating. One of the cooling fans was found not to be working. Gamski went out briefly but quickly returned, his gearbox making horrible noises. Riley reported lack of grip, which Gareth (of the Damax team) tried to cure by altering the wing angle to zero to reduce rear end downforce.

• When the first qualifying session ended we started a marathon round of telephone calls to try and get the two non-serviceable 355s back into combative order. Several calls to Belgian Ferrari importer Garage Francorchamps for a fan motor for the Furness car established that they close their operations mid-afternoon on Fridays. “Perhaps we can do something on Monday ” was their helpful suggestion... As a last resort Wren Classic’s engineer dismantled the offending fan motor and, eureka!, found the brushes were not attached. Some simple work with the soldering iron had them operating again

• Solving Witt Gamski’s gearbox problem was not so straightforward. Through the good offices of series sponsor ProSport, a gearbox was located in Belgium. Following an epic driving stint of 17 hours, Giovanni, an associate of ProSport, arrived with the replacement box. The unit was from an F1 car so had to be adapted to manual operation to suit Witt’s car.

• Witt’s crew was assisted by Neil Cooke, who through the week can be found at Kent High Performance Cars. Neil had been down in Monte Carlo looking after a couple of customer’s cars taking part in a rally. One of them was an Enzo and the plot was that after the event Neil would drive it to Zolder to help with the F355 preparation. All good plans often come to nought. The Enzo’s clutch disintegrated (as apparently they often do) and instead Neil had to fly from Monaco to Brussels airport, completing his journey to the circuit by cab.

• Gamski’s new gearbox was working perfectly but his efforts were cut short when the front undertray became detached. A mass of stones on Mike Reeder’s tyres didn’t help grip but his reported lack of power was found to be due to his fuel filler cap being left off! Furness, now super cooled, was able at last to get down to some serious lappery.
  
  

  With thanks to Anne & John Swift for the info.

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Gamski's car caught fire and wrecked its gearbox

Furness's overheating problems were fixed by some old-fashioned mechanicing by Wren Classics

Riley played with his wing

Mike Reeder had problems too...

...Gary didn't

...the Swiftys weren't exactly rushed off their feet

pics by Stefan Eckhardt