Good Race Marred

A fine entry of 28 Ferraris emerged for qualifying. All the major contestants were present, with the unfortunate exception of Ian Hetherington in the F50, who had clashing commitments. The two main protagonists were therefore undoubtedly going to be the Italia Autosport F40 of John Pogson and the Specialised Cars F40 of Stuart Bowler and it was these two that occupied the front of the grid. Four 355/Chs were next in the order of Marco Attard, Neil Woodford, Graham Reeder and Nicky Paul-Barron and lurking only slightly behind were the flat 12s of Alan Cosby and Colin Davids. Amongst the 'O' class Fred Moss and David Ashburn in their F355s looked certain to have their usual battle but with Shaun Powell in a similar tipo coming ever-closer.

Heat 1

Pogson and Bowler pulled away at the front, with Bowler occasionally closing the gap to virtually nothing, but Pogson looked to have things under control.

Woodford and Attard took up the chase in their 355/Chs until the latter spun on lap four, dropping back to ninth from which he then made a strong recovery. This put the closely battling Cosby and Davids on to the tail of Woodford and on several occasions the big 512M looked for a way past Woody's nimbler 355.

It was not to be and the finishing order was Pogson some 6 secs. ahead of Bowler, with Woodford and Cosby barely separable but Davids some way back in fifth place with a recovering Marco Attard just two secs. behind. There then followed a further 355/Ch train, with Nicky Paul-Barron followed by Graham Reeder and Marc Gachoud. The latter, however, crossed the finish line backwards, having come to grief in a last ditch attempt at getting past Reeder's car. Thankfully Marc was unhurt from a very heavy impact with the bank.

The 'O' class produced a terrific race, with Moss holding off Ashburn by just 0.4 secs., with Powell and Gary Marsh (F355) bringing up the next class positions.

Heat 2

This time it was Bowler who looked to have a reasonable grip on the lead until suddenly on lap eight he pulled into the pits with transmission failure. This left Pogson to cruise to the finish and he even allowed the Woodford/Attard cars to close up on him in the last two laps.

Nicky P-B drove hard into an eventual fourth place, ahead of Davids, but Cosby slipped back to sixth after a spin and a yellow flag incident involving another car during which he felt that he had unduly lost positions whilst he slowed down for the incident. Peter Lowe (308GT4) finished closely behind in seventh.

Fred Moss this time had 'O' class victory a little easier from David Ashburn, but it took some forceful driving from Shaun Powell to wrest third place from Gary Marsh - all of them in F355s.

And then, in the scrutineering bay, came the bombshell as winner Pogson's F40 was found not to comply with the Regulations in the suspension area. The Clerk of the Course excluded him from the event but, pending an appeal, the results must remain provisional. All the other finishers therefore moved up one place in the amended result.

On a more positive note, for his very focussed performance Shaun Powell was nominated as the Psygnosis Driver of the Day.

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