Race Report - Races 2&3 - 2006 Pirelli Ferrari Open - Club Racing Series'

As at the previous race meeting at Donington Park, the Open field consisted of just eleven cars: five in Challenge class and six in class S. In qualifying John Taylor (308GT4) proved to be the fastest of the ‘S’ class drivers, logging a respectable 1:06 to capture a second-row place on the grid. Second fastest in this class was Tris Simpson in the ex-David Barker 328GTB, although towards the end of the session he was clearly experiencing difficulty changing gear.

As expected, it was Class ‘C’ that produced the pole position car and, to his obvious delight, the driver was the irrepressible Charlie White. Sharing the front row with Charlie was Tim Mogridge who is getting the hang of his ex-David Dove F355 in great style. Only just behind Tim (a mere tenth of a second) was Mike Reeder in his familiar yellow machine.

Race One
The first of the two 20-minute races got underway promptly at 2 o’clock with the hot sun beating down on the shimmering tarmac. The rolling start procedure had been clarified with the Clerk of the Course and this time everybody was singing from the same hymn sheet.

When the pace car pulled off and the red lights went out, White made a copy book start from pole position and roared into the lead, hotly pursued by Mogridge. Behind the two leaders, Reeder and Taylor were locked in combat with I’Anson, with Chester and Paul-Barron disputing 5th place. At the back both Morris and Christopher were having an unhappy time. Mos was worried about falling oil pressure on certain corners and George’s post qualifying confidence was clearly misplaced as his sick car got slower and slower. Both 308s pulled into the pits at about the same time, their day’s work prematurely over.

On lap 3, Reeder moved ahead of Mogridge to take second place while I’Anson was sitting uncomfortably close to Taylor’s banana exhaust system. There was a good battle going on behind the leading five, with N P-B seeming to have the legs of Chester although their lap times were almost identical.

Then, on lap 8, a determined Reeder put his yellow 355 ahead of the kaleidoscopic car of Charlie. This was really exciting stuff to watch as, not to be left out, Mogridge speeded up to close the gap to those ahead. Less than two seconds covered the leading trio.

We hadn’t seen Mike Reeder leading a race overall before and it was clear that he wasn’t going to let this opportunity of a win fall from his grasp. Charlie tried his best to spoil Mike’s day, establishing a new lap record on lap 12, but coming out of Luffield two laps later he made a slight error, allowing a grateful Mogridge to slip by into second and take on the leader.

At the finish there was only half a second between Reeder and Mogridge, with third-placed White some 6 seconds further back. John Taylor was delighted to have notched up his first class win of the season, with Nicky P-B and Nick Chester picking up the other ‘S’ podium places.

Race Two
There was considerable mechanical attrition of the ‘S’ cars in R1, which left us with just two of them for R2 to add to the five F355s, all of which seemed in good order. With his famous first win under his belt, Mike Reeder proudly led the abbreviated field on the green flag lap behind the pace car. At the lights Reeder’s car hesitated (a suspected broken manifold causing a misfire) and Tim Mogridge marched off into a narrow lead from White, with Taylor almost up with them, in third.

Tim held on to his slender advantage for the first four laps, but then on lap 5 Charlie blasted through to P1 at Becketts. At the same time Taylor was coming under increasing pressure from I’Anson, losing his third place again on lap 5.

Behind all this activity there was a tremendous dice developing between Hogarth and Chester. Hogarth’s 355 had a clear speed advantage on the straight but Nick was able to close under braking. The 308 driver tried every which way to get past, every lap being a few inches away from the bigger car’s rear bumper. It was brilliant edge-of-the-seat stuff which had the marshals at Brooklands totally engrossed. In the end, Chester came to terms with the situation and eased off but it was great fun while it lasted – almost all of the race!

When the chequered flag finally brought things to a close, an ecstatic Charlie White crossed the line to take his very first victory with an equally happy Tim Mogridge just 0.518 second behind in second. Mark I’Anson, in third, was delighted with his podium spot, even more so when he heard that he had broken the Open lap record set earlier in the day.

John Taylor finished ahead of a misfiring Reeder to pick up his second class win of the day and at the same time smashing his own lap record for the Silverstone National.

In spite of the low numbers, this second race was just as exciting as the first had been. The formula of the Open is clearly a winner – all we need is more of everything, cars and reliability.