An entry of 19 cars equalled the FF2000s here at Lydden, and must be one of the better grids of Classic FF1600s ever assembled at this little track near Dover. Full marks to those who had ventured down from ‘up north’ – 7 hours of motorway driving on a Friday night for Messrs Walton, O’Connor, Williams and Baxter.

Local boy Paul Sleeman drove the fewest miles up the road, whilst it was only a couple of hours for the Londoners. Anthony Wills came to my rescue yet again, and gave me a lift – cheers Ant. Dave Lowe and Joy had another long jaunt – with the 69 out of action and resident back in Guernsey following the oil pump failure at Thruxton, he ventured up to Bedford to pick up the 61, and then drove back to the south coast. All you need to do now Dave is locate the other 61 somewhere near Oulton, and you’re more or less sorted for the whole country !

Lydden was warm and sunny but thankfully nowhere near as oppressive as it has been on previous July visits. Everyone lined up in the collecting area prior to qualifying. Anthony was rather concerned about the noises emanating from his engine. Following his retirement at Thruxton, he had concluded that the noise was a leaking exhaust…this had been fixed, yet the noise had returned whilst warming up in the collecting area. A word of warning everyone – never ask me to comment on the state of your engine – my recommendation to Anthony was ‘do three laps and see how you get on’ – but then I had the bright idea of getting Bernard to have a listen – ‘switch it off now !’ was his immediate response – I thought he was winding Anthony up, but no, he was deadly serious : so that’s what a ‘Big End’ sounds like then!  So that was that for Anthony, who hadn’t driven 10 yards. 3 laps would probably have destroyed the engine, so we were both relieved that he hadn’t taken my advice !

So 19 became 18. Following this little drama, everyone hit the circuit. Within a couple of minutes, Robert Boyer had beached his RF81 in the gravel at Devils Elbow, which brought out the red flags. 5 minutes later, and the session was restarted, allowing another 10 laps or so. The two Pauls took possession of the front row, Walton taking his 4^th pole of the year, with Sleeman a half second adrift  (a country mile round this place !) The competition behind though was intense : Jon Davis was 6 hundredths adrift in an excellent third (matching his best grid slot to date) just edging out Dave Lowe by 3 thousandths ! Simon Davey took (for him) a lowly 5^th, a measly 2 hundredths down , with Andy Powell another 5 hundredths adrift. Colin and Neil yet again continued their midfield battle (spending much of the session nose-to-tail as is their custom these days) in 7^th and 8^th, whilst Jon Nash and Dave Malpas rounded out the top 10.

And so to the race. Watching various races throughout the day caused concern amongst some over the lack of flags. Unfortunately, our race was to prove no exception. The formation onto the grid was a farce – with no grid marshal's, drivers were left to their own devices as to their grid position. When the grid formed after the green flag lap, the rear half of the grid were still mucking about trying to locate their slots, and when the lights went to green, many drivers were far from stationary ! From the lights, Paul Sleeman led from Paul Walton into the first corner, with Jon, Simon, Dave, Colin, Andy, Neil and Dave Malpas behind. At Devils Elbow on the opening lap, Jon Nash was punted off by a late breaking Dave Malpas, and promptly stalled. He resumed just in front of the leading pack as they came round on their second lap, and set about his recovery drive. The order stayed the same into lap 3, but then it all started to go wrong. Jon Nash, clearly anxious to avoid being lapped, allowed his over exuberance to get the better of him at Paddock, and he ran wide and spun. This happened at the worst possible place on the circuit – his spin being unsighted by all bearing down on him, and the flag marshal's were hopelessly late in showing any yellows. The leaders somehow managed to jinx their way passed the sideways RF80, but poor Simon had nowhere to go as he came over the brow. He went right in avoidance, but his left rear made contact with Jon’s right front, and that was that for both drivers. They were out on the spot with mangled corners apiece. An unfortunate incident that should have been avoided had the marshal's been doing their jobs properly.

The race was stopped whilst Simon and Jon’s cars were removed, and the remaining 16 cars went back to the grid in the order : Paul S, Paul W, Jon, Dave L, Colin, Andy, Neil, Dave M, Alan Williamson, Phil Norris, John Hesp, Michael Valentine, Albert, Paul Mills, Steve Russell and Robert Boyer. The race was to be over 12 minutes duration.

Dave Lowe ran very wide at the same corner on lap 7, allowing Jon Davis to get through into 3^rd. Sadly, Colin retired on lap 8 with a broken gear linkage, which was a shame after such a good effort. The long trip down from Stockport yielded a single point, and allowed Neil to take a leap forward in their Class B battle.

Jon passed Paul W on lap 10, a position he held to the flag, although he made several attempts at taking the overall lead (from a man who has driven round here so often he could probably do it blindfold). This was another superb effort, giving Jon his best finish in a race so far, and rewarding him with not only 2^nd place and the Novice trophy, but also the Cobra Beer Driver of the Day.

Paul Walton settled for a maximum 13 Class B points in third place, and with Dave Lowe ‘only’ coming home in fourth (third in Class), he extends his championship lead to 10 points.

A hectic race then. With incidents aplenty, it was a case of ‘blink and you missed it’. Apologies to those who had eventful races, and remain unmentioned. Its damned hard to see everything going on here, even though you can see the entire circuit.

ADH