White takes FF1600 double at Howard’s Day event
CASTLE COMBE CCRC 5 APRIL
Double-headers for each of Castle Combe’s four resident categories thrilled viewers via livestreaming for Howard’s Day, which opened the Wiltshire circuit’s 2021 season.
None thrilled more so than Formula Ford, where Ollie White landed the only Easter Monday double after a mere 0.543 seconds blanketed the top five runners, each in different chassis, during qualifying. Felix Fisher (Ray GR05) claimed pole for race one, with White (Medina Sport JL17K), reigning champion Luke Cooper (Swift SC18), championship debutant Ben Mitchell (Van Diemen RF99) and young Alex Walker (Spectrum 011) snapping at his heels.
All five were locked in combat from the moment the red lights went out, but it all came to a head when White squeezed bold outside challenger Mitchell onto the grass atop Avon Rise midway through the race.
Mitchell spun wildly, forcing Fisher into avoiding action, shooting over the grass on the right and just missing White as he exited Quarry, the Ray ending up in the barriers on the outside. White, Cooper and Walker thus finished 1-2-3, pursued by the recovering Mitchell. Seventh-placed Nathan Ward (Swift SC92) won Class B, and Richard Higgins pipped James Colborn by a length in Class C.
The sequel was sensational to behold but was without polesitter Fisher, whose car was too damaged to take the start. White, Cooper, Mitchell and Walker ran nose to tail throughout the 10-lap contest, with only 0.613s separating them at the flag. Ward stormed back from a hairy spin out of Camp on the first lap, hunting down Paul Barnes for B honours again. Steve Bracegirdle split Higgins and Colborn among the earlier cars.
Two breathless Saloon races brought battling and drama aplenty. With front-row starter Gary Prebble out due to a broken rear wheel after a sluggish getaway dropped him into the pack, Kevin Bird (Nissan
Everill took a win in GTS aboard Ginetta G55 200SX) and Alex Kite (Audi TT) flew ahead. Contact between them entering the Bobbies chicane spun Bird and delayed Kite, promoting Neil Greenland and polesitter Simon Thornton-norris in a Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart shootout. Thornton-norris slowed with ignition issues, whereupon Kite surged back before taking the lead and the win from class victor Greenland.
Early leader Prebble slowed dramatically two thirds of the way through the second race with a driveshaft failure, limping home a lapped ninth in his SEAT Leon Cupra. Thornton-norris, having fixed his machine, took victory ahead of Kite and Greenland.
Unreliability blunted the GT encounters, with Bradley John’s Mitsubishi E9 breaking in the first, freeing Oliver Bull’s Vauxhall Tigra Silhouette to win from Tony Bennett (Caterham R300). Alan Hamilton, finding unprecedented pace in his now wingless Duratec-motivated Westfield Aero, shadowed the reigning champion home.
Bull went grass-tracking avoiding John Moon’s MG Midget-vauxhall in race two, filling the Tigra’s radiator with grass. Chris Everill’s 6.3-litre Ginetta G55 had a clear run thereafter, chased by Doug Watson’s Ferrari 458 Challenge and Bennett.
Jordan Curnow (Honda Civic) and Chris Southcott (Peugeot 205) shared Hot Hatch honours. Curnow spun exiting one of the chicanes in the second race, but battled back to third behind Tim Adams’s similar Civic. Tony Cooper (Peugeot 106 GTI) and Darren Duffield (Mini Cooper S) topped their divisions on both outings.