The twenty-six entrants for the second round of the 2008 Historic FF2000 series looked set to enjoy warm, sunny weather, and that is how the day worked out. We were the last race, so many drivers had opted to do it all in one day, as Silverstone is so central. Only a select few made it to the barbecue on Saturday evening!

Qualifying saw an all-novice front row, with “Equipe Fowler” teammates Russell Love and Ben Atkinson-Willes to the fore. Very close behind was Dale Spruce, showing his usual turn of speed, and the ever competitive Colin Wright (who had taken the plunge and replaced his fifteen-race old front tyres). Fifth placed Oliver Thorpe (another youngster) was unfortunate to suffer a broken stub axle on his Royale RP27, which left him a non-starter.

Others to suffer problems were Tom Mills, with a persistent misfire, Graham Hill (whose Spax-liveried Reynard looked great), with gearbox problems, and Derek Watling, who suffered a broken gear linkage in the cockpit. James Ledamun gave himself a lot of cleaning up to do by going off, and burying his car in the gravel.

Antony Raine was still suffering from a niggling misfire which doesn’t show up on a rolling road, Seamus Doyle was bemoaning his ancient tyres (although a fairy godmother provided new ones for the race!). John Taylor suffered with a very flat engine, and poor Janet Sherry only managed two laps due to a misfire that plagued her all day.

Non-starters, Oliver Thorpe and Graham Hill were joined by the very unfortunate Lou Watts, whose freshly-rebuilt engine dropped a valve whilst being warmed up.

So – it was twenty-three cars that took the start. Unfortunately, the race went red on the first lap. Steve Gardiner had hit Nigel Grant, putting them both out. Steve, ever the gentleman, admitted liability, and they shook hands. Jonny Dimsdale suffered a bent front wing tube, and despite the best efforts of yours truly on the grid, was not allowed to take the restart. Andrew Storer had also gone straight on, and was lucky to get back on track for the restart.

The restart went cleanly, but Janet Sherry gave up the unequal struggle after one lap with that misfire. Up at the front, Russell Love emerged with a 0.4s lead on Colin Wright. That lead remained throughout the race, but Colin was usually less than half a second behind, closing up to 0.23s on the penultimate lap. Behind them, a furious battle raged between Dale Spruce, Trevor Arkell and Peter Denham. The lap chart doesn’t tell the full story – there was rarely more than a second between them. Sadly, Dale – who had been third throughout – was destined to coast across the line with a dead engine, to pick up fifth place.

The second lap saw a tangle between a recovering James Ledamun and John Taylor, both cars suffering a degree of damage. Tom Mills was another to retire with misfire woes. Other retirees were Jon Lucas and Alan Gape.

Special mention should be made of Ben Atkinson-Willes (driving the car that his dad drove at Cadwell). He lost time in the pits at the start of the race, but came back superbly to set a blistering fastest lap of 1:31.085.

It was a bit disappointing to see only fourteen finishers when twenty-six made qualifying, but mechanical maladies and relatively minor incidents accounted for a higher than usual number of retirements.