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Class A & B Combined Race
Darryl Davis came to Castle Combe feeling confident, due to some extensive testing around the altered Castle Combe circuit earlier in the year. Recent weight penalties had slowed the pace of the MGF down but Davis told me before the race
“we have spent sometime checking out all the suspension geometry to make sure everything was just right, which it was not before” So would he be going faster?
The number plate on the F announced 'NO MERCY' and it was no surprise that the MGF was the fastest car on the track.
As already mentioned, after a lot of discussion it was decided the Class A cars would start 20 seconds behind the Class B cars. This proved to be quite interesting as by the time the Class A cars got half way along the straight they were met with the wreckage of Dave Mellor's Class B Maestro. The sight of a wrecked car so early on may have unnerved a few people, but not Davis! Davis said, “I fully expected to catch most of the catch most of the Maestros up, but this was not to be the case, as hard as I tried I could only overtake a few cars, and when Julie Clark was the next car behind me I was wondering why the F felt so sluggish in the afternoon, I can only assume this was due to air temperature".
Further down the field in Class A, Dave Amphlett who had initially made a good start, was forced to slow due to incidents ahead of him, this led to him getting a whack from behind, and he suddenly found himself in last place almost! Amphlett then spent the next few laps clawing his way back up the field. Someone was dropping oil and spreading it all around the circuit.
One hairy moment for Amphlett was when he squeezed in between Jim Gotobed in the Blue MG Midget and Robin Harris in the yellow and blue MGB (owned & normally driven by Steve Lewis) on the exit of the 'Esses' On the penultimate lap Jonathan Kimber spun his car on the exit of ‘Quarry’ in front of Amphlett, and with Chris Pollard who was right behind, it was a miracle that both managed to avoid him as he came back out onto the track.
At the front end of the race were the front wheel drive MG Maestros, first lap casualties included David Mellor, as mentioned, along with Paul Naish and Steve Gray. Once the first lap argy bargy was over it turned into a pretty good motor race, four cars managed to break away. Most of the race was led by Nick Evans, No.87), closely followed by Jame Perry, Nick Arden and Doug Cole (more or less in that order!) John Devine who earlier had doubts about his engines performance, maintained a healthy fifth place. Andy Campbell dropped to mid field after going sight seeing off circuit at ‘Quarry’ on lap six.
After ten ‘interesting’ laps it was James Perry who was to emerge as victor! With just over a lap to go Nick Evans lost his battle to keep first place, but it was a close finish, just 0.62sec separating the drivers. Nick Arden managed to fend off immense pressure from Doug Cole to finish a highly respectable third.
Further down the field Darryl Davis was leading the Class A cars, with the MGF running strong right to the chequered flag to record 5 wins out of the last 6 drives. Davis won by a massive 10 seconds, ahead of Julie Clark who had little time to worry about chasing Davis. Clark for the whole 10 laps was under intense pressure from Gary Smith and Peter St Barbe.
St. Barbe relegated Smith to third but failed to get passed the defensive driving of Julie Clark.
There was some confusion, to say the least on the last lap of the race. As a result of an accident, ambulances and breakdown trucks took to the circuit. The race perhaps should have been stopped. Scott Tanner had ran into the tyres and as a result dislocated his knee. As soon as the race was over, the medics were in full attendance, and after been assessed in the medical centre he was taken to hospital. (Get well soon Scott)
Several vehicles either limped or were trailered back to the paddock, there is a long list of DNFs. Amongst those is Simon Kendrick who had a heavy impact with David Hill. This was after Kendrick and Paul Roberts made contact. Neither Hill or Kendrick were able to continue.
Roberts was able to get going again, and after a quick look at all the gauges (water temp & oil pressure) carried on to finish 9th in the class.
I have recently heard from a marshal that was on duty at 'Quarry' and he told me that Scotts accident was in no way connected to the above incident. Any spectators choosing to view the race from 'Quarry' made a good choice, sadly I was at another corner where the action was perhaps not so dramatic!
Next Race: Lydden Hill, Kent - August 5th
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