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Motorsport

26 Jul 2022

Porsche Speed Championship at Castle Combe

Castle Combe 23rd July 2022

The day was warm and bright and despite the remnants of heavy overnight showers the forecast was dry. A brilliant turnout of 18 Porsches assembled to tackle the challenging and very quick three-quarter lap of the Castle Combe circuit in the heart of rural Wiltshire, sadly Andy Penman was unable to join us in his lovely GT3. The format was for only 1 practice run and then straight into timed runs. The event was live streamed and this is still available to watch on YouTube.
 
Class 1 again saw three competitors with the purposeful slick shod GT3 that is shared by Tim Barber and David Hilton and the wonderful standard Cayman 718 GTS of Howard Cressey. Practice was uneventful and timed runs soon saw times start to tumble with Tim Barber leading the way with a very fast adjusted time of 64.57 seconds which was achieved in his final timed run. He was followed closely by David Hilton in an adjusted time of 65.92 seconds. Howard Cressey improved his times over the day in his standard road car having broken the magic 70 second barrier in his first timed run and finished on an impressive 68.96 seconds.
 
Class 2 saw a good range of machinery from the lovely and very rare 964 Cup car of Mel Spear, the standard Cayman 718 S of Hannes Tanzer and the old and much modified 911 SC/RS of Ian and Nick Wadsworth. It was apparent from the start that Hannes was familiar with the Castle Combe circuit and put in some blistering times culminating in a superb 66.68 seconds. The other three class competitors tried their best to match him and in the end were separated by only 0.5 second with Mel taking second in a very impressive 67.41 seconds. Nick was only 0.21 behind on 67.62 beating Ian by another 0.29 seconds.
 
Class 3 saw the largest class with equally close racing and swapping of positions right up to the end. Racing was particularly close between the first 3 with Wayne Eason in his slick shod Boxster 2.7 setting the pace. Both Wayne and Geraint Evans set their fastest times in the second run with the ever-improving Adrian Rowlands reducing his lap times on each run. Wayne did an impressive best of 68.26 seconds to take the win by 0.44 seconds from Adrian who snatched second away from Geraint by just 0.15 seconds. Graham Rose, Michael Brown and Paul Watson all improved their times over the course of the day.
 
Class 4 has seen an ongoing battle during the season between Stephen Jory and Martin Leach with the advantage swinging from one to another depending upon whether it was Sprint or Hillclimb. This time Stephen’s superior circuit ability in his 944 gave him a very impressive victory and a best time of 68.76 (achieved twice) that would have put him well up in the class above. Martin tried his best to reduce the deficit and brought his times down to a very respectable 70.86 seconds. In third place Jake Cartwright in the beautifully prepared Boxster 2.7 with its distinctive paintwork made huge strides in reducing his times by nearly 4 seconds from practice on what was his first time at this circuit and finished on 72.76 seconds. Father and son team of Ian and Adam Cristol fought hard in their totally standard road going Boxster S and again took large amounts of time on each run with Adam reducing his time by over 4.5 seconds.
 
The event ran without incident and was attended by Mandy Sear the Porsche Club GB Motorsport Manager who kindly gave out trophies on behalf of the club to the class winners and was ably helped by Harrison Rose.

The next round is at Goodwood August 13th 2022