It is really difficult to understand why just seven cars entered these two races. By all accounts there are some 50+ Challenge cars in the UK, all of them unable to be used on the road, so the only place for them is a race track. Granted, some are just track day fun cars, but what do the rest do on the weekends? At Snetterton there was double the number, not a great entry either but with 14 cars you can begin to make a good motor race.

Qualifying saw the Balfe-run car of Sam Smeeth (458/Ch) take pole position but only narrowly ahead of Paul Bailey's similar tipo. The two other 458s of Wayne Marrs and Mick Dwane were also quite close. The second 'race', that for 430/Chs, was led by Tim Summers (fresh from his Daytona drives in the formula classic races) ahead of Douglas Campbell and Tim Ingram-Hill.

Race 1
Despite the low numbers it was actually a good race! Although Smeeth went into an immediate lead and began to pull away from Bailey, it only lasted until the tenth lap when he outbraked himself and Bailey slipped past.

Smeeth then gradually caught up again but passing the leader was another matter. He tried each and every way but Bailey drove a good defensive race and narrowly held on to the lead all the way to the flag at the end of 22 laps. At one point Smeeth got in front at Redgate but had the wrong line for the Craner Curves and lost the lead again.

Behind these two Wayne Marrs and Mick Dwane made an even better show of it, swapping positions and at one point even going round side-by-side for more than half a lap, before Marrs finally took third place by about half a second.

Among the 430s Ingram-Hill led initially but then clashed with Summers who was trying to get past and it was Campbell who just narrowly took the class win ahead of Summers.

Race 2
This time Smeeth made no errors and quickly pulled away from the 458 of Bailey at the rate of more than a second a lap, and won the race by over half a minute.

But behind there was another great battle between Marrs and Dwane. Nose to tail, side by side, they swapped positions several times over the course of the 22 laps until Marrs just pipped it by less than a tenth of a second.

In the 430 race Summers had it all to himself. Campbell made a quick pit stop and fell out of contention, leaving Ingram-Hill to take second in class.

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