REUBEN AND CASTALDINI PUT ON A SHOW
Nigel Reuben and Myles Castaldini of Historic Modsports proved that you don’t need to have a big field to have an exciting race.
Sharing a grid with Historic Touring Cars meant that Reuben had to push his TVR Griffith through a pack first and he hadn’t counted on Castaldini, whose Davrian started right at the back due to ignition failure during qualifying. From a seemingly impossible gap, Castaldini chased down Reuben in the Modsports fight and was right on his exhaust at the end, just 0.3 seconds behind.
Credit must also go to Historic Touring Cars winner Neil Wood, who had a great drive in his smart Ford Anglia and even tried to resist Reuben for a while. He won the second race, which was run as a handicap for touring cars only.
Charles Barter (Datsun 240Z) was almost not as fortunate in 70s Roadsports. He received a 10s penalty for jumping the start and it looked like Porsche driver John Williams would inherit the win. However, the driveshaft on Williams’s 911SC gave out, meaning Barter kept a safe margin to Jeremy Clark driving a Lotus Elan.
Drivers returning after crashes was something of a theme. Kevin Kivlochan won the Historic Roadsports race in his AC Cobra, having not raced the car since a big accident at Cadwell and not being sure if he would be on the pace. He was challenged by Peter Garland’s Morgan +8, but pulled away in the closing stages.
In Classic Clubmans, which was combined with a few Classic Formula 3 entries, Mark Charteris won both races comfortably in his Mallock
Mk20/21. This was Charteris’s first race since crashing his March 742 Formula 2 car at the Brands Hatch Superprix.
Historic Formula Ford resulted in two fairly dominant wins by Samuel Harrison, driving a Merlyn Mk20, but the battle for the rest of the podium spots was lively. Ted Pearson (Merlyn Mk11A/17) kept within two seconds of Harrison in race one, then Rob Smith and Chris Porritt, both in Merlyn Mk20s, argued over third, with Smith prevailing.
Harrison built up a gap to Pearson quickly in race two but a five-car chasing group was more concerned with its own rivalries. Porritt edged it very narrowly from Smith on the line, with Scott Rawlinson in an earlier Merlyn pushing through from the back to fourth. Pearson was penalised for a jumped start and dropped to sixth.