ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS KICK OFF COMBE’S RACING RETURN
Three months later than planned, Castle Combe’s 70th anniversary season got underway as motorsport started to emerge from the pandemic lockdown. There was no crowd admitted and the weather was grim, but for most people it was just good to be racing again.
Regular Combe frontrunners Luke Cooper and Felix Fisher served notice that the condensed 2020 Castle Combe Formula Ford Championship could be a two-way contest. The first race got the best of the track conditions and the second race got the worst, but in both races Cooper and Fisher quickly escaped from some ferocious battling in their wake.
Though Fisher led into the first corner of the opener, he was soon deposed by Cooper and it was wheel-to-wheel action for much of the race until Cooper eked out a small margin as rain started to fall in the closing laps. Fisher really wanted a win to honour the memory of his father Brian, who died last November, and duly dominated later on a soaking track as Cooper dropped six seconds away.
Bryce Aron and David Vivian were the best of the rest.
With four double-headers for the local categories, the only double winner was Chris Southcott in his potent Hot Hatch Peugeot 205 GTI. First time out he held Dan Brown’s Honda Civic at arm’s length, but Southcott had a tougher time at the end of the afternoon. The grid for race two was formed by second best qualifying times and Southcott only managed four timed laps, leaving him seventh on the grid. He made swift progress through the spray to win by a slightly bigger margin.
Lucky Khera won the opening
GT thrash in his latest Ferrari F488 as Oliver Bull gave valiant chase in his Vauxhall Tigra Silhouette. Khera elected to miss the second race in order to save wet tyres for a Silverstone Grand Prix track day on Sunday and so Bull splashed home for a resounding win.
Adam Prebble blitzed the Saloon opener in his prodigiously powerful Vauxhall Astra turbo but his gearbox was failing over the closing laps and he missed the later race, which allowed reigning champion Simon Thornton-norris a clear win in his Mitsubishi Colt.