And so to the final round of the season. Cutting the Championship to 10 rounds, with 3 double headers, has without doubt helped us keep over the 18 car average grid this season, but the downside is that it has all come to an end rather quickly. Seven race meetings is but half of what we had on offer 10 years ago, but if we allowed ourselves the luxury of a 14 round Championship today we would surely be signing our death warrant. Having said that, there are of course other options available (the WHT and Dijon being two late season opportunities), so the habitual racers are still catered for…

 With Class A and the Novice Championships already settled, Combe would settle the Class B title, which was down to a two horse race between Andrew Smith and Dave Lowe. Andrew held a 7 point cushion over Dave. There were a few places further down the order that were still up for grabs, with the chance for Mike Saunders to take third in Class B from an absent Matt Taylerson. 

The entry for this final round was somewhat disappointing to be honest. With guest appearances from Paul Sleeman and Alex Meek, we should have managed over 20 cars, but we only had 17. With the sad news that Paul Walton’s mother had passed away, the Walton family withdrew from the meeting, so in fact we dropped to 15, which made it our smallest grid of the season. Never mind, we had done enough to exceed the 18 car threshold, but only just.

 Stuart Kestenbaum was back with a rebuilt Van Diemen following his shunt at Pembrey, and hopeful of a more positive end to his season. His second place in Class A was assured, as indeed was third for Steve Pearce. Ian McMillan had the opportunity to leap frog the absent Paul Walton and Ollie Robinson to take fifth. Other regulars included Steve Bell (hoping to bow out on a high note after his Pembrey engine failure cost him all chances of the Novice title), James Gowens, Roger Newman, Andy Hodson, and Jonathan Greenwood. And nice to see Peter Lavender out with us again, and also Nigel Lingwood, who had such a good weekend in South Wales.

 Qualifying : It was wet. Very wet. The recovery drivers were having a very busy day returning mangled cars to the paddock, and we hoped that ours wouldn’t be amongst them. But with considerably slower lap times, we weren’t in for many laps this morning. As it turned out, more or less everyone managed 6, with fast starting Stuart and Paul getting one extra.

Qualifying conditions were not pleasant…

Most people had a cautious first lap or two, including Peter Lavender (who many will remember winning here many years ago in the wet), but Stuart and Paul were in a different league, popping in sub 1:40s on their first laps, with the next closest being Andrew Smith on a 1:46!  Steve Bell pootled round for an opening lap of 2:13 to prop up the back of the grid. That was his first ever lap in a Formula Ford on a wet track.

Conditions were not pleasant it must be said. Cars were aquaplaning on the straights, and Old Paddock – normally a straightforward flat in third after the Esses – was quite treacherous, even on a delicate throttle.

Paul banged in a 1:38.7 on lap 2 to take provisional pole, and position he held for a couple of laps, until Stuart dropped the time to a 1:38.1. Andrew headed Class B on a 1:41.4, with Nigel was next up on a 1:42.8. Everyone else was down in the 1:44-48 bracket. Steve Bell was still towards the tail end, with a quickest of 1:49.5.

The next four minutes witnessed arguably one of the most unexpected turn of events in Classic FF history. Admittedly he was running on brand new ACB10s, but it still beggared belief. Steve Bell – having got a 1:49.5 lap time to his credit – sped over the finish line with a 1:39.2, and still with sufficient time for one more try. This elevated him from near the back to third. His final lap chopped another 1.5 seconds off, as he took the chequered flag on a mighty 1:37.7 !!  Stuart had got into the 37s a couple of minutes earlier, but Steve beat him by 0.147 to take his first ever pole position. A quite incredible performance, and not fully appreciated until the grid times were published 20 minutes later. A couple of lucky laps then…surely he couldn’t hold it together for the 10 lap race, with experienced drivers snapping at his heals ? As for Steve himself, he was his normal casual self, and rather bemused by what had just happened.

Row 2 comprised Paul and Andrew, row 3 Nigel and James, row 4 Dave and Ian, row 5 Steve Pearce and Pete, row 6 Andy and Roger, row 7 Alex and Jonathan (the latter doing well to get down to a 1:50), and the tail end slot taken by Mike Saunders, who didn’t like the conditions one little bit. So – 15 cars all back into the paddock, without any major dramas other than a few harmless spins. Good stuff.  

The race : Much to everyone’s relief, by mid afternoon, the rain has ceased, and the track was dry, although rain clouds continued to threaten. Some folk had witnessed a youngster by the name of Josh Hill coming from the back of the grid to take third in the Formula Ford of Great Britain race. His dad Damon approved…

Combe uses an F1 style red light start. As the C of the C said during the briefing, probably the closest any of us will ever get to F1…cruel, but true…

 Despite a dry track, the grid was still a tad damp in parts, so it wasn’t a standard race start with 5000 on the clock unless you wanted to spin the rears. Whatever the cause, Stuart made a very poor start, and was caught in the midfield as the pack headed down to Quarry. Steve Bell had got off the line well and held the lead, with Paul and Andrew in tow. But behind all hell was about to break loose.

Nigel spins                                 Stuart collects

Instant retirement for Stuart and Nigel

 It’s difficult to apportion blame to what happened as quite a few cars were involved. After speaking to a few drivers after the race (and viewing some on-board footage) I will describe it as a typical first lap – first corner ‘racing incident’. Something that, I am pleased to say, does not happen regularly in our Classic races. With everyone bunching up into Quarry James Gowens and Ian Macmillan had a close shave which bumped Ian off line, he had to come off the brakes to avoid a spin. This resulted in him braking late, locking up, and ramming Nigel Lingwood up the rear, putting him into a spin on the entry into the corner. He was collected by none other than poor Stuart, the resulting impact damaging fairly severely both cars’ suspension, and putting them out on the spot. Dave Lowe also got caught up in the mêlée, with a nosecone missing, and a broken radiator. He crawled back to the pits and retirement, and with that, his Championship challenge was over. Andrew Smith was Class B Champion whatever happened next.

Also to get caught in the Quarry Carnage was visitor Alex Meek, who was also out on the spot with some damage, albeit minor compared to Stuart and Nigel’s.

So that left 11 cars running…. So much for a dry race and no incidents !  The Quarry dramas had brought out the safety car, enabling the wrecked cars to be removed, and allow those remaining to re-group.

So – we had Steve Bell in the lead, from Andrew, Paul, Ian (minus his nosecone, which had been comprehensively mashed by various cars as they ran over it), James, Steve Pearce, Roger, Peter, Mike, Jonathan and Andy at the back. Andy was lucky to escape from the Quarry incident – he went left onto the grass to avoid the broken (but still moving) Kestenbaum Van Diemen, and just managed to sneak through a gap between him and the tyre wall.

It took several minutes to clear the mess, and 3 laps behind the safety car. But then it began to rain again! As the safety car peeled into the pits, it was raining fairly hard at Camp, and this caught out several drivers as they accelerated through the corner in order to get a good exit over the start/finish line. James Gowens spun over the start finish line, and Roger went off after he lifted in avoidance, both were able to recover. Just behind the spinning duo Peter Lavender spun in sympathy, and although he got back onto the track, he found that his clutch had failed, and he was only able to drive round in 4^th.  

The 3 leaders at the restart                    Steve under pressure from Paul

It proceeded to get wetter, and, with many drivers on a dry set up, the race spread out as drivers opted to conserve their poorly handling machines. Out front, Steve Bell held his lead well, first from Andrew, and then from Paul. Andrew, realising that Dave was out, and therefore the Class B Championship was his, had no need to push hard, and was happy to continue in a lonely third position. Paul kept up the pressure on Steve, with the gap only 0.8 second at the end of lap 7, but as the rain hardened, Steve pulled clear to take the flag by some 11 seconds. An amazing performance, no doubt assisted by the demise of Stuart and Nigel, but nevertheless a very worthy result. He had led from the start, handled the pressure behind, coped with the restart, and drove fast in worsening conditions. Well done Steve, thoroughly well deserved.

 Paul then took second, and the Class B win. Steve Pearce took 4^th, albeit 20 seconds adrift of third placed Andrew, battling minimal grip in his ‘slick’ shod Van Diemen. Ian soldiered on to finish 5^th, and third in Class A, which elevated him from 7^th to 5^th in the overall Class A standings. Roger was pulling him in, but ran out of laps. He was only a couple of seconds adrift at the flag. Andy had managed to get onto Roger’s gearbox by lap 8, but spun on lap 9, and decided to coast home for 7^th. Peter, stuck in 4^th, brought the Merlyn home in 8^th. Mike Saunders had every reason to be cheerful despite hating the conditions. He soldiered on to take the finish, and with it 4^th in Class B, sufficient points to jump him into third place in the Class B Championship, a fine reward for his constant appearances at every round this season. Jonathan toured round to collect the final place.

The 2009 Class B Champion

 Yet again, poor old James failed to make the finish. 6^th at the restart, he went off on lap 7 with a spin at Tower.

 So, that was it. An unfortunate way to end the season for some people, but we had witnessed a brilliant win, and no doubt Steve Bell will be a factor in the Championship next season, now that he knows how to do it. Congratulations to him, congratulations to the Champions Joe, Andrew and Alan, and my thanks to all the drivers who have competed throughout the season. Enjoy the winter break, and I look forward to seeing you all at the dinner in February.

 Andy H

The 2009 BBE/URS Classic Formula Ford 1600 Championship through the eyes of a novice.

The 2009 Bernard Baxter Engineering/URS Classic Formula Ford 1600 Championship has produced some fantastic racing all around the UK from the fantastic ups and downs of Oulton Park to the furiously fast Thruxton circuit.

As a novice it has provided the platform to learn the tricks of the trade in a very friendly but also competitive environment. There is always someone there to provide you with advice on set up or even what gears to be in for each corner.

The driving standard is one of the best aspects of the championship even with very competitive drivers battling it out for positions each driver wants to be able to just put their car back on the trailer at the end of the day in one piece. I was able to do this on several occasions thanks to the very quick reactions from David Lowe and Roger Newman when I missed the odd gear or two in the initial stages of the season.

 As a new comer to the championship there are some great perks with a free entry to the final round and the winner of the novice championship receiving a free engine rebuild, which I just missed out on, but I am sure Alan will be enjoying this and my congratulations to him on winning the novice championship with a round to spare!

It has been a fantastic year and I look forward to seeing everyone at the end of season party and next season with hopefully lots of new faces as well.

 Steve Bell