Hetherington's F50 Does It, Just

Qualifying resulted in a very close grid, with Colin Davids' Testarossa only narrowly ahead of Ian Hetherington's F50 and, with an already excellent performance on his return, Pogson's F40. Behind came a phalanx of 355/Chs led by Marco Attard, Neil Woodford, Nicky Paul-Barron and Rory Fordyce.

In the "O" class things were equally close, with David Ashburn just fractions ahead of Gary Culver and Shaun Powell, all in 355s.

At the start Hetherington seemed to get the drop but Davids' Testarossa swept into the lead going into Paddock, with a squabbling Pogson, Attard and Paul-Barron right up with them. Nicky soon went past Attard to snap at the heels of the leading trio.

On Lap 4 Hetherington passed the Testarossa and was followed a lap later by Pogson's F40, the three of them running a tremendous race which ebbed and flowed as they came upon back-markers which, on the Indy circuit, is a frequent occurrence. The 355/Ch of Paul-Barron hung gamely on to the much more powerful group in front and pulled out a lead of several seconds ahead of the chasing Challenge cars of Attard, Woodford and, after a small gap, Bruno Cappuccini doing a good job of skilfully keeping in front of Rory Fordyce and Alan Cosby (F512M). The latter group was to come to grief, however, when, in sheer frustration to get past a very wide Cappuccini, Fordyce went on to the grass and spun out of the race.

On Lap 10 the luckless Pogson retired the F40 with a deflating rear tyre and this once again enabled Colin Davids to pull right up on to the tail of the leading F50. Fighting their way through the numerous back-markers, the two were only 0.2 seconds apart as they crossed the line after an enthralling 15 laps. NP-B drove into a dominant third overall, completely untroubled by the other 355/Chs of Marco Attard and Neil Woodford who finished fourth and fifth, less than half a second apart. Alan Cosby eventually managed to pass Cappuccini and they took sixth and seventh places.

Nicky's confident drive earned him the Psygnosis Driver of the Day award.

The "O" class brought the anticipated duel between Ashburn and Culver in their F355s. Throughout the race they were scarcely separated and finished less than one second apart, with Shaun Powell some 20 seconds behind in third place.

The large Bank Holiday crowd had been thrilled at the sight of three Ferrari supercars battling for the lead. On the evidence so far the GMFC will provide a highly entertaining season - something it has not always achieved in the past. The large influx of 355/Ch cars has brought a further dimension to close racing.

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