Round 6 of the Elise Trophy held at Castle Combe on July 15 2007.
A “severe weather warning” from the Met Office didn’t sound too promising! However we’d been really lucky with dry races so far this season, so we were probably due a wet race. The drivers who attended the test day on the Friday had the chance to practice in the dry in the morning and the wet in the afternoon, so were well set up whatever the conditions. Another full entry list of 42 cars included 6 first time racers: Elgan Howell, Stuart Kirkbride, Paul Pattison, Steve Wentzell & Richard Abra.
A lot of drivers arrived on the Saturday and participated in the SELOC family fun weekend, including some comedy moments in the boxing ring, not to mention a couple of unfortunates who “celebrated” their birthdays with a dunking!
Sponsored by:
 |
|
| Class A | Class B | Class C | Handicap |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Qualifying
Sunday morning dawned grey and wet, with the promise of what the forecast described as “heavy thundery showers” during the day. By the time we got on circuit for our qualifying session at 9am, it had stopped raining, but the circuit was still wet. Castle Combe Specialist Mark Funnell set the pace overall and in class C, although Chris Randall was only 0.17s behind on the grid. Andrew Walsh qualified 3rd, with Steve Williams 4th in his class B car. Gavin Kirby was an excellent 6th on the grid in his class A S2 Exige. With the field pretty mixed up due to the conditions it looked like we were for some exciting racing!
Scratch Race
In the end no more rain materialised during the morning and as we lined up on the grid for race 1, the circuit was pretty much dry, except that is, for the right hand side of the grid, which was still greasy. As the cars slithered off the line, it was Randall who got the better start at the front, leading for most of the first lap until Walsh attempted a rather optimistic overtaking manoeuvre at the Bobbies chicance, taking them both off the circuit. Walsh managed to re-join the circuit, but Randall’s race was over. Funnell avoided the carnage to take the race lead as they headed down towards Camp corner.
Abra’s first race in the VX220 was short lived, as he went off into the barriers at Quarry on lap 1, bringing out the safety car. It took 5 laps to extricate the stricken VX, then on lap 7 we were racing again. Funnell held on to take the flag, taking the overall and class C win. Walsh had rejoined in 14th and battled his way back up the field to take 2nd overall. Williams was an excellent 3rd overall in his class B car.
Kirby held on to take victory in class A (13th overall), closely followed home by Andrew Gordon.
Race summary – 42 entries, 37 starters, 31 finished.
Sealed Handicap Race
During the afternoon conditions got worse and worse as persistent rain showers swept in from the west. A number of incidents meant that the timetable got delayed over the afternoon and our race (the last of the day) was pushed back to a 6pm start. The curfew at Castle Combe is 6:30pm so we decided to run a 15 minute scratch race, rather than the usual 20 minute handicap. A sealed handicap would be applied to the results after the race had finished to work out who had won.
It was raining pretty steadily as we lined up, the lights went out and we were off, squirming our way down towards Quarry, the amount of spray was incredible and you really could only see the couple of cars immediately in front. Luckily, we all got through Quarry, and as the field spread out a bit, the visibility improved.
This time the guys at the front behaved themselves, and Funnell took a lights-to-flag scratch race victory, followed home by Walsh & Randall. However Walsh received a 10 second penalty for a jumped start, giving Randall 2nd place in the scratch race.
Ian Smith had a spin at the Bobbies chicane on lap 8 and retired. Michael Edwards was lucky to escape with only minor damage as he clipped him on the way through.
Ben Pitch, who’d finished an excellent 7th overall in race 1, span out at the exit of Camp on lap 9, bringing out the yellow flags. Jamie Allason clipped Pitch as he was recovering from his spin, but managed to carry on to finish the race.
After the race was over, the handicappers applied their formula to work out the sealed handicap results. The conditions (and the fact that the formula was calculated in the dry) favoured the class A cars. Congratulations to Gordon, Wentzell & Tom Chatterway who finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Race summary – 42 entries, 35 starters, 33 finished.
Conclusion
Well we survived our first wet race meeting, pretty much unscathed. Hopefully if we return to the Summer Racing Festival at Castle Combe, we’ll get some more seasonal conditions!
Congratulations to Mark Funnell, who was the Castle Combe Racing Club’s “driver of the day”.
Look out for further television coverage of Elise Trophy races on Motors TV over the next few weeks (the first showing of the Silverstone races is on Fri 3rd August at 8:30pm). For further details of our television coverage and to see a short promo, please check out the Race Television web site.
Our next race meeting is at Donington Park on 1st-2nd September 2007.
