Down to the Wire

Qualifying was a messy affair as many got caught on slicks when the track progressively got wetter. John Seale (355/Ch) and Colin Davids (Testarossa) both had wets on from the start and used them to good advantage to take the front row of the grid. A terrific third was Shaun Powell in his "O" class 355, his road-going Goodyear tyres coping well with the conditions, and somehow the Specialised Cars team managed to perform a mid-session pit stop to put Stuart Bowler (F40) back out on wet tyres in time to grab fourth slot on the grid. Ian Hetherington (F50) and Fred Moss (F355) brought up the next two positions, ahead of perpetual "C" class protagonists Neil Woodford and Marco Attard.

Other potential front runners were affected by the weather vagaries : John Pogson (F40), Alan Cosby (F512M) and Andrew Micheals (308GTB) were all starting further back than would normally have been expected but the biggest task of all surely lay in store for Sean Walker (F355/Ch) who qualified all the way back in 30th place on the 35-car grid. To make matters even worse, this would be the grid for the second race as well as the first.

ROUND 13

Seale made the most of his pole position and shot into the lead, closely pursued by Davids, a fast-starting Hetherington, Woodford (up from seventh) and Moss, who had already passed Powell for the "O" class lead.

By the second lap, Davids had put his Testarossa firmly into the lead but behind him came a close tussle between Seale and Woodford, with Hetherington and Cosby giving great chase.

Second place man Seale was coming under heavy pressure from Woodford and the latter took over second spot on lap five when Seale had a quick spin but continued a place down. Woodford thereafter grimly chased the leading Testarossa, inching ever-closer in the treacherous conditions and was less than a second behind at the finish, with Seale a distant third.

Behind the leading trio there was a tremendous tussle between Hetherington, Cosby and Pogson's F40 which Cosby soon began to dominate as the other two gradually fell away. The most amazing catch-up was Sean Walker who worked his 355/Ch up from 30th on the grid. He was 14th by lap two, ninth by lap six and eventually finished in sixth place, just ahead of Marco Attard and less than two seconds behind Pogson.

In the "O" class Fred Moss took his usual win but Shaun Powell drove mightily in chase, holding off both Gary Culver and David Ashburn, all in 355s. It was only a quick spin by Powell that handed second place in the "O" class to Culver who closed up to within one second of Moss at the end.

Hetherington's fourth place in "M" compared to Davids' win (and fastest lap) put it all down to the wire in the next and final race.

ROUND 14

At the start Davids pulled into an immediate lead but was closely followed by the F50 of Hetherington and the F40 of Pogson, who had made a demon start from ninth on the grid. Behind this trio came Cosby's F512M chased by Neil Woodford, Andrew Micheals and John Seale, with Sean Walker already joining this group by lap five from his lowly grid position.

And then came the rain, leaving some parts of the track sodden with water and others merely slithery. Hetherington, never happy with his F50 in the wet, dropped back and eventually retired with a puncture. This left the "M" class championship table in a perilous state because if Davids continued at the front of the class it would all come down to the one point for fastest lap.

Davids hung on to the lead until on the final lap he let Neil Woodford's Challenge car through (running in a different class, of course) to take the win, followed by the amazing Sean Walker, Andrew Micheals and Nicky Paul-Barron, who had driven a strong race in the tricky conditions from 15th on the grid and who had pipped Pogson in the Italia Autosport F40 on the line. Alan Cosby had retired from fourth place with a re-occurrence of his car's early-season transmission problems and John Seale had also disappeared when his power steering gave up its assistance.

The "O" class was a little easier for Fred Moss this time but again it was Gary Culver who came in second after a somewhat subdued Ashburn had spun off. Simon Bartholomew brought his 355 into an excellent third place, in his best drive yet, and Shaun Powell finished fourth after another spin.

The wait for the "M" class results in the parc ferme was tense - Hetherington was just one point in front of Davids but if the latter had got the one point for fastest lap then he would take the Championship due to better overall results. It was high drama therefore when the results sheets arrived and it was Pogson who took the extra point - thus leaving Hetherington the relieved winner.

For his two excellent and thoughtful drives from the back of the grid into sixth and third positions in each race, Sean Walker was nominated as the Psygnosis Driver of the Day.

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