Mayday Madness at Castle Combe Race Circuit

Report By CPe FOTO

3rd May 2021

Another race day at Castle Combe without spectators, due to Government rules. I however, was granted a media pass as an accredited photographer for the day to capture the Castle Combe Racing Club (CCRC) Mayday Madness Meeting. 

With qualifying due to start at 8:30am for this packed out meeting an early start was on the cards. Leaving the house at 7am, I loaded my gear into the car with my waterproofs donned for the day ahead.

The forecast was looking like it would be a wild afternoon with strong winds and a ton of rain. I can confirm that the Meteorological Office didn’t exaggerate! 

I arrived at Castle Combe at 8am after a blustery drive along the M5 and M4 and was quite stunned with just how many cars were parked up in the paddock. All ready to do battle regardless of the weather! 

Two guest championships from 750 Motor Club were in attendance to join the CCRC. The BMW Car Club Racing with a healthy 25 beamers on the grid and a massive collection of Mazda MX-5s were nearly maxing out the circuit capacity at 41!

Combined with the Castle Combe Racing Club entries, this totalled 167 racing machines prepped and ready for the day ahead.

While the rain was holding off, qualifying seemed like a good opportunity to get some ‘dry’ images. 

The 750MC Mazdas went out to put in times for the first of their three races. I can imagine that getting a good clean lap with a grid of 41 could be pretty challenging!

Coming out of their 15 minute push, Ben Short in the white No.71 MX5 claimed P1 with a respectable 1:20.306.

The reigning champion, Ben Hancy, was hot on his heels in P2 just 3 tenths behind. 

The three Mazdas races saw increasingly deteriorating conditions throughout the day but Ben Smart tallied up maximum points by taking lights to flag victories in triplicate. 

Interestingly enough, the most carnage came before the rain! On the first lap of their second race, all hell broke loose in the middle of the pack with cars spinning left and right at the exit of The Esses.

I saw 2 cars drive away with battle scars but 3 were going nowhere and were stuck on the infield awaiting rescue.

Red flags, recovery vehicles and the Orange Army swept into action and quickly lifted all three cars from the grass and carried them back to the paddock.

The CCRC Hot Hatch Challenge Series saw a regular P1 visit in qualifying by Jordan Curnow in his ballistic Honda Civic! Clocking in at 1:12.974, he was over half a second quicker than any of his rivals.

Onto the Race…

Curnow lead from the off with Chris Southcott and Will Self fighting over 2nd place in their Peugeot 205s. The next lap saw an engine failure for Southcott on the approach to Quarry corner which allowed Tim Adam’s White and Blue Civic to sneak through and grab 2nd.

The rest of the race saw many battles up and down the entire field. As a bit of rain began to fall with a few laps to go, the Civic of Curnow had an engine issue and had to coast to a stop at Bobbies. You could see the disappointment with hands on his head as Adams passed by on his next and final lap. 

The race ended with Tim Adams (No.81) in P1, Shaun Goverd (No.15) in P2 and Will Self (No.34) in P3.

A great selection of BMWs were running in the BMWCC races and if you are a BMW fan it was a great spectacle to watch. From an E30 to a M140 and a whole host of E36 and E46 M3s.

My personal favourite was the Matte Black E46 M3 of Paul Cook (No.26). 

During Qualifying, Niall Bradley scooped P1 in 1:11.464 with Brad Sheehan alongside him with just 3 tenths separating the pair.

Race 1 climaxed with Sheehan (No.28) in his all white E46 M3 taking the top step of the podium but their second race, in very wet conditions favoured the older Team FSR E36 M3 of Lee Piercey (No.61) who commanded a 14 second lead at the chequered flag!

Up next was the CCRC GT Championship, this is an eclectic mix of different race machinery with six different classes that includes Saloon Car, Sports Car, GT Car, Silhouette, Touring Cars and even motorcycle engined cars! 

The range goes from a stunning spaceframe Tigra Silhouette (Oliver Bull No.41) which qualified in an outstanding 1:05.825 to a rather more subtle Clio Sport 172 which tipped the clock at 1:22.439.

Silhouette cars are highly modified allowing the chassis to be changed as well as the drive train and location of the engine.

As the race began, Tony Bennett (No.1) in his Caterham R300 made the best of the rolling start and maintained the lead for the first half of Lap 1.

Oliver Bull muscled his way through at Tower and then ran away with the race finishing over 46 seconds ahead of Bennett in P2 and 2 whole laps ahead of everyone from P7 to P11 at the back of the finishers.

The Class E battles were incredible with Alexander Baldwin’s Civic and the two Clios of Adam Perrett and Cory Woolfrey respectively competing in a close fought race.

Following the Mazdas second race, the highly charged beasts of the CCRC Saloon Cup took their places on the grid.

Earlier in the day the Prebble brothers locked out the front row with Gary peddling his gorgeous Seat Leon round in 1:10.794 and Adam’s Vauxhall Astra just over 6 tenths behind with a 1:11.446.

Gary Prebble found himself back in 6th place for the first approach to Quarry after bogging down at the start. He then spent the next few laps picking his way back up to 2nd.

The rain started to fall with some anger about 6 laps into the race and being the first wet race for Adam in his Astra, Gary was able to real him in and ended up taking the win with 9 seconds clear and collected maximum points for his Championship campaign.

The Formula Ford 1600 qualifying saw Felix Fisher netting pole position on a dry track with a time of 1:10.536 however, the good weather was a distant memory as they lined up on the grid.

The race began with stormy conditions that you would have thought the Met Office would have given a name to!

As they made their way round Quarry corner for the first time, its fair to say that only Oliver White, in 1st place, could actually see where he was going.

Understandably, lap times were greatly increased with times being up to 25 seconds a lap slower than the dry times. 

Everyone behaved admirably and the race finished with Oliver White (No.94) on the top step, Felix Fisher (No.26) in P2 and an incredible drive from Class B winner, Nathan Ward (No.23) taking the final step of the podium in P3.

Another race that had the dry to wet treatment (between qualifying and race) was the Dave Allan Trophy which was the final race of the day.

This 45 minute ‘Endurance’ race is to pay tribute to the Honda Test and Race Driver, Dave Allan. 

The monstrous Ginetta G55 6300cc of Everill and Scrivens was at the front of the grid with a dry qualifying time of 1:08.636. A full 2.3 second ahead of the Cupra TCR car of Scaramanga and Powell who shared the front row.

During the race, several of the cars had to come into the pits to have the inside of their screens cleaned due to steaming up so positions were changing regularly.

The driver changes, for those that had second drivers, occurred during the forced 90 second pit stop during the race and everyone settled into the rest of this soaking wet race. 

In a slightly early end to the race, due to an off at Quarry, the Honda Civic Type R piloted by Ludlow and Emmett took the chequered flag which gave a superb tribute to Dave Allan.