Race Report from Colin Williams

Cadwell can be a long trek for some people but I was pleased to see that the CFFR had managed to put a full grid plus two reserves out for this round of the championship. As I only managed to do half a lap last year before my engine went kaput, I thought I'd share a test with Anthony Wills on the Saturday afternoon. On arriving I saw Mitch franticly mending his car after going off in the morning. I got my car out, got ready and then went out for my session only to think "oh my goodness it's like a Blackpool rollercoaster".

PRACTICE
We went out for practice onto a track that was still drying out following a thunder storm on the Saturday night. It was a little bit damp around the hairpin and parts of the pit straight. With a full grid the traffic was a bit of a nightmare so I waved about 5 or 6 cars by, found myself a nice big gap and thought "ok let's put in some times", then "dam! red flags". Anthony had gone off at the bottom of The Mountain into the tyre wall. I was going to give him the Croix wave (the wave he gave me when I went off in practice at Croix!) as I went past but he was too busy wrestling with the tyres that had fallen onto the car during the accident When the session restarted we were released in pairs with only 8 minutes to go. So, with no gap in the traffic, it was a case of making the best use of the time we had left. Stuart Tilley and Nigel Bancroft took up the front row with Richard Shelton and David Penlington on row 2. With Anthony out of the race Simon Davey could relax a little bit on row 4 with Dave Lowe. I was on row 7 with Jon "the spinner" Nash. Ian Millward had had a great practice and was on row 8 and, with Anthony out, Bob Boyer in his first ever race rounded up the grid in 24th place.

THE RACE
At the start of the race we all got away very cleanly for such a narrow circuit. Jon managed to get in front of me and, at the end of the first lap, he was among a group of five cars that were two seconds in front of me. With a good size gap behind me I was able to work on narrowing the gap down to within a second. However, as we went through the Gooseneck down to Mansfield, Keith Ward had a spin in front of me which separated me again from the rest of the crowd. After that I had a bit of a lonely race until Jon "the spinner" Nash (who was up to 9th position) lived up to his name and had a spin half way around Chris Curve. When he regained the circuit I was like a rash all over him. I managed to get side by side with him down the pit straight but, with not a lot of room going into Coppice, I had to back out. For the rest of the final lap Jon drove a faultless defensive line and even won driver of the day award. Meanwhile, at the front of the race, Stewart Tilley won with a 6 second lead followed by Nigel Bancroft, Dave Penlington and Richard Shelton. Unfortunately Nigel and Dave had to spend the next 2 hours in front of the clerk of the course because Nigel had overtaken Dave under a yellow flag. As a result, Nigel was demoted to third place.

CW