A Hot Hatch double for Hyland Motorsport’s Corey Webber was the talking point of Castle Combe’s Howard’s Raceday season-opener on Easter Monday, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the late Howard Strawford buying the circuit in 1976.
Cornish-based Webber powered his pristine Honda Civic clear of Lee Waterman’s less powerful version in both stanzas but, even when his mount’s transmission wilted a lap from home, Webber had sufficient margin in hand over Waterman to finish on double tops. Renault Clio duo Tim Fooks-Bale and Justin Holloway shared a third and fourth apiece, as Josh Carter (Mini Cooper S R53) also proved unbeatable in his class. Reigning champion Sam Williams (Civic EF) and Adam Wilks (Peugeot 106 GTI) shared class D honours.
Hot Hatches aside, grids were small, yet the quality of racing was high. Having sorted scary handling issues with his VW Golf GTI turbocar, Harrison Chamberlain hounded down fellow former Saloon champion Adam Prebble’s Vauxhall Astra turbo from the back. Aware that Prebble’s steed was stuttering on right handers, with fuel starvation, Chamberlain pounced at the final corner to win.
When Prebble’s team discovered a split fuel pipe, Chamberlain’s crew sportingly found a replacement and fitted it to get him out in the finale. Prebble duly evened the score, by a whisker, after boost issues thwarted Chamberlain. James Allen (Honda Civic Coupe), one of three feisty K24-engined runners sampling the championship, beat Bill Brockbank’s potent SEAT Leon Cupra to third first time out, but finished in its wake later.
Cooper (r) twice got the better of Walker in Formula Ford bouts
Photo by: Ollie Read
Triple Combe Formula Ford champion Luke Cooper (factory Swift Cooper SC20) tracked poleman Alex Walker (Wayne Poole Racing Van Diemen RF00) until Camp on the programme opener’s penultimate lap when the left-rear suspension’s tracking arm pulled out of its mounting, forcing retirement. Cooper repeated later, relieving Walker of the lead with an imperious outside swoop from Quarry into the Esses for home win number 31.
Graduating from a Swift SC92 to a sister SC20 to Cooper’s, Sam Skellett, 17, fought off double champion Adam Higgins (Van Diemen JL15) and Nathan Ward (SC92) impressively to complete a team 1-2 in the opener. Behind Walker, Skellett and Ward suppressed Higgins to fifth second time out. Eighteen months after a massive shunt at Silverstone, quadruple Combe champion Bob Higgins, Adam’s father, returned at 76 with a Van Diemen RF88 and scrapped spiritedly with Alicia Hamlen (Ray GR09).
Dave Scaramanga (Ferrari 488) was made to work hard for GT gold by an on-form Keith Butcher (Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo) but, when lap record holder Sacha Kakad rode Butcher’s bull second time out, the order was reversed. That race was restarted after Chris Everill’s Ginetta-Chevrolet G55 clobbered the Recticel barriers backwards at Camp when its front brakes failed and the rears locked in a duel with defending champion Dylan Popovic’s similarly-powered G50. Everill walked away.
The Welsh Racing Drivers Association lost three runners in the preliminaries, second qualifier Damian Longotano’s Westfield Millington with a broken propshaft joint and Leigh Haslett’s Renault Megane to clutch failure, while Wayne Spiller (SEAT Leon) migrated to GTs. Jason Davies cut a tremendous 1m08.552s for pole in his self-developed Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth, but did not have to work as hard to lap closest rival James Harvey’s Porsche Boxster S in both races. Thomas Fowler completed the podiums in a Rocketdog Racing Mazda RX-8.
Davies’ self-developed Sapphire Sierra Cosworth was on glistening form at Combe
Photo by: Ollie Read
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– The Autosport.com Team
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