Christopher’s Croft - Again!

The entry was a little on the modest side by this year’s voluminous standards, with only 22 cars making the journey to the friendly northern venue. Being an AMOC meeting, there were many other races for Ferraris to try, including Inter-Marque, Ferrari vs. Porsche and Sports Cars vs. Saloons.

Qualifying on Saturday midday saw the Specialised Cars’ F50 of Ian Hetherington take an easy pole ahead of Andy Christopher (308GTB) and Andrew Micheals (308GT4). Neil Woodford was the quickest of the Challenge racers, with Colin Davids’ Testarossa next. The “O” class pole was taken by, almost inevitably, Fred Moss but only narrowly ahead of his rival David Ashburn, both in F355s. John Pogson’s Italia Autosport F40 lurked at the very back of the grid, having practised out of session following a turbo failure.

Croft opening laps are always exciting because of the impossibly tight right-hander at the end of the first straight. Hetherington was a little slow away at the start, trying to conserve the big car’s clutch, and Christopher was first off the line. Thereafter opinions differ but suffice it to say that the F50 spun at the first corner, was heavily collected by Micheals’ GT4, and Davids’ Testarossa also became involved. With cars all over the place the red flag was immediately shown and it was disappointing to note that the F50 and Testarossa were too badly damaged to take the re-start, whilst Micheals’ GT4 also looked a sorry sight but the SEB team somehow managed to get it repaired and back on the grid for the re-start.

At the re-run the race was shortened from the scheduled 12 laps to just seven. Andy C. again went off into a lead he was never to lose to the finish. Behind him, however, there was an enthralling Challenge battle. Nicky Paul-Barron, with the benefit of empty grid positions ahead of him, made a blinding start but was soon passed by Marco Attard and Neil Woodford, with the latter then succeeding in an almost impossible out-braking manoeuvre on the Attard car.

Whilst Woody gradually moved clear, Attard and NP-B became involved in such a mighty dice that took them all the way to the finish where they were separated by just a coat of paint.

Behind the three Challenge cars John Pogson (F40) had driven a storming race from the back of the grid, picking his way carefully through traffic and, by taking second in class behind Andy Christopher, he now overtakes Ian Hetherington for the lead in the “M” class points table. Graham Reeder (355/Ch) raced into a good sixth, ahead of Micheals’ repaired GT4.

Amongst the “O”s, Fred Moss took the expected win, ahead of David Ashburn, Shaun Powell and Simon Bartholomew, all in F355s. The 328s of John Avery and Chris Chadwick fought a close battle with the 348 of Andy Duncan and the three of them finished less than 1.5 seconds apart for 5th, 6th and 7th places in their class.

And so we thought that that was the end of the day. Everyone disappeared to the excellent Moodys’ hospitality suite, where Neil Woodford was again nominated as the Psygnosis Driver of the Day.

It therefore came as a bitter blow to hear the names of Neil Woodford, Marco Attard and Ben Orza being called to the Clerk of the Course. Following post-race examination of all 355/Chs by GMFC scrutineer, John May, the rear brake pads of these three cars were found not to comply with the regulations and therefore they were excluded from the results. A disappointing end to the day and, although there was talk of appeals against the verdict being made, at the time of writing it is not known whether these have been formally lodged.

With a few cars to repair in the meantime, the Series now takes off for the double-header at the Nürburgring on 4th/5th September. The championship positions in the three classes look mixed. In the “O”s Fred Moss shows every sign of continuing his domination but in the “M”s Pogson and Hetherington are just one point apart, following the F40s recent good run of success. In the Challenge class, Nicky P-B has moved closer to Marco Attard’s points total following the latter’s exclusion from the Croft results, but with five more races remaining anything could happen!

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