Silverstone, in its International guise was the venue for the third race of the Historic FF2000 season. Unfortunately, the twenty-two cars in the programme were reduced to twenty, as Jan Langdon had to withdraw through illness, and the unfortunate David Clark, whose engine rebuild following, his Cadwell  problems, had not been completed. Sunny, but deceptively cold and breezy conditions, set the scene for qualifying, and immediately Neil Fowler continued the stunning form he has shown all season. He was setting the pace from the start, and ended up with a 1:28.878, over 1.5s clear of second placed Scott Temple.

Fortunately, the sequence of red flags in qualifying this year was broken, and most drivers managed bout ten laps. In third place, making a welcome return, was Tom Mills, still running on the tyres he used all last season. Tom had dad, Steve and mum, Peggy Ann to perform babysitting duties for his gorgeous daughter. Just behind Tom was James Murray, again showing well in his Reynard, with Wil Arif. 0.6s behind Wil was David Wild, with the ever-consistent Antony Raine hot on his heels. Colin Wright, suffering carburettor problems was unusually far back in eighth.

Stuart Boyer had his immaculate Spax Reynard going well to be next up, followed by Peter Richards, who was having his first race outing of the year. It was good to see James Ledamun next up in the Crosslé. Behind James were Stuart Olley in his Delta, and Trevor Arkell, who spent part of the session running in his rebuilt engine. John Taylor relished the “in-house” rivalry with Stuart Olley, to qualify next, ahead of Seamus Doyle. Behind Seamus was poor Mark Pierce who had a water pump belt come off, and was reduced to just four laps in the attractive Sparton. Alan Gape was next, ahead of the closely matched Supervees. Series debutant Graham Kiddy headed the trio, ahead of John Bowles, and Jon Randall, in the pretty Lola.

All twenty cars that began qualifying made the grid, but unfortunately three of them did not manage to complete a lap. As expected, Neil Fowler stormed into a lead that was never to be challenged, finishing 9.6s ahead of second place man, Tom Mills. Tom drove really well, belying his long layoff, having got his old tyres thoroughly warmed up prior to the start. In third and fourth for the whole race were Scott Temple and Colin Wright. Colin managed to climb from his lowly eighth place to fourth on the first lap.

Behind the leaders, things were not going quite so smoothly. Stuart Olley spun at Becketts, having made a very good start, and the similarly fast-starting Trevor Arkell could do nothing to avoid the rotating Delta. In the resulting contact, Stuart lost a rear corner, and Trevor had both a front and rear corner taken off. A racing incident, but very regrettable all the same. Another driver who failed to complete lap one was Mark Pierce, and I’m ashamed to admit, I do not know the reason, maybe it was a legacy of his qualifying problems.

The mayhem from the Olley/Arkell incident caused a lot of avoiding manoeuvres, so that at the end of the first lap there was a seven second gap between Antony Raine in ninth, and Peter Richards in tenth. It has to be said that much of the rest of the race was processional – with certain exceptions… James Ledamun, having been delayed avoiding the accident, drove a storming race to finish tenth, after being fourteenth on the first lap, setting a very competitive time in the process.

The Supervees put on a very good show, with a spirited “race within a race”. Unfortunately, Graham Kiddy, who had been going very well, retired with electrical problems (but scooped the Trackstar Products award – a battery charger!) in recognition of his efforts. John Taylor was the only other retirement, with a gear selection problem. James Ledamun got the Driver of the Day award for his spirited drive.

We seem to be averaging about twenty cars at the moment – it would be nice to think that some extra cars will be out for Mallory (in three months time). There’s a twenty-four car limit there – let’s see if we can provide an oversubscribed grid!