Waterfield and Wilson top 500cc F3 at Combe’s 500th
CASTLE COMBE CCRC 1 APRIL
The contrast between junior single-seater formulas at Castle Combe in the 1950s and today are marked, yet both provided scintillating highlights at Easter Monday’s season-opener, the Wiltshire venue’s
500th car race meeting. Like 500cc
Formula 3, which embroiled young bucks and veterans contemporarily, and does still in historic guise, rising stars measure themselves against champions in the circuit’s Fford category.
Tom Waterfield and Alex Wilson won a 500 race apiece in Cooper-nortons. Waterfield, 26, dominated the soaking wet opening stanza in Bristolian Tim Ross’s Mk9 – originally owned by Jim Russell, winner of Combe’s October 1955 class swansong – and was victorious by over 40 seconds. Wilson’s Mk10 and Harry Painter (ex-harry Whitney US import Mk7) splashed home behind the Cotswolds engineer.
The dry second outing showed the cars at their best. Wilson made a brilliant getaway from the rolling start and fended off Waterfield, whose 1m27.045s (76.51mph) best lap shattered aerobatics pilot Steve Jones’s 2014 record.
After Painter pitted briefly, the scrap for third between Simon Dedman (ex-ninian Sanderson Erskine Staridenorton) and Chris Wilson (Martin-norton) went all the way. Welsh-domiciled Scot Finlay Mackintosh (Cooper Mk5) was a lonely fifth, but Jimmy May – in late grandfather Ray Petty’s eponymous design – caught and passed the Coopers of Nigel Challis and Richard Kelly.
With four Combe FF1600 champions in the top five after damp qualifying, and four chassis marques occupying the first two rows, fans at Quarry anticipated a cracker as multiple title winners Josh Fisher (back in Richard Hudson-evans’s Van Diemen JL14), Luke Cooper (Swift SC20) and Felix Fisher (Ray GR05) sat first, third and fourth, split by 2023 Festival winner Rory Smith (Medina JL18).
Gunning for a hat-trick of crowns, Felix Fisher made a sensational getaway from the standing start, leading over Avon Rise. Smith fluffed the Esses and came round eighth as the Fishers made the running, pursued by 2011 champion Rob Hall’s new Swift, Tom Hawkins (Ray) and the delayed Cooper, with the Class B Swift SC92S of Sam Street and Nathan Ward behind.
The Fishers broke clear but, as Josh jinked past his sibling on lap seven of 10, they were caught by Smith and Cooper. Smith snared fastest lap slipstreaming up to Felix, but was unable to improve further, the top three finishing within half a second. Behind Cooper were Hawkins, Hall, Ward and Street. Next was Class C victor Tom Mcarthur (Van Diemen RF89), who had David Cobbold’s sister car and Vincent Jay’s RF90 in tow.
Second time out, the Fishers traded the lead until Felix ran onto the kerb exiting Camp, sapping momentum to Smith’s advantage. They were joined by Cooper, whose 1m10.820s best lap was 0.007s inside Smith’s earlier mark. A scant 0.81s covered the quartet on the line, Josh having completed a faultless double. Fifth overall, Ward won B again from Street and Jay, while Cobbold claimed C after Mcarthur’s steed ailed.
The Lamborghini V10 versus turbocharged Ferrari V8 GT races ended with a win apiece for Keith Butcher and Doug Watson, after a scrape at the Esses in the opener. Dylan Popovic and Chris Everill (Ginetta-chevrolets) chased Butcher in, with Jamie Sturges fourth
in his new Cupra TCR. Watson and
Butcher coaxed each other into the 67s bracket later. Sturges, fourth behind Popovic, also achieved that feat.
Harrison Chamberlain’s VW Golf GTI celebrated its compliance with Combe Saloon rules with a brace of victories over Bill Brockbank’s new SEAT Leon Cupra, the first after 2022 champion
Adam Prebble was excluded for a flag infringement. Welshman Jez Williams (Peugeot 106) was named Driver of the Day after screaming from the back in the opener to finish third later.
Dan Brown blitzed the inaugural Hot Hatch championship races. Jason Stack (Renault Clio) and Shaun Deacon (106) chased him home initially after Craig Tomkinson’s Vauxhall Nova hit a dropped exhaust at Camp and broke a wheel. He borrowed a pair of rears and was second in the sequel, despite one working loose. Ross Parker (Civic) wrested third from Stack.
Rod Birley outfoxed Everill’s thunderous Ginetta, on fried wets, at Bobbies on the final lap of the Classic and Modern Motorsport Club Super Saloons opener. Everill, on slicks, was uncatchable later. A clash with Adrian Bradley’s fellow BMW M3 skittled Birley back to eighth.