After a long and soggy winter it was good to get back to the racing again. A lot of people must have thought the same because the turnout of both cars and supporters for the first round of the PMFC was excellent.

The weather, however, brought no wonderful spring day and instead it was damp, murky, cold and spitting with rain.

An interesting entry of Ferraris turned out, with the continuation of the recent trends towards the more modern tipos, especially 355s and 360s. Indeed there were only five of the old 308/328 series' which for so many years dominated the racing.

Morning qualifying was on a wet track and John Seale's (360/Ch) pole-winning time of 1:26.86secs was some 10 secs behind a good dry time. Incredibly, Gary Culver, last year's "O" class champion, was only an eye-blink behind and he shared the front row in his 355/Ch. Alan Cosby (F512M) and Skid Carrera (Testarossa) shared Row 2 and next up were Peter Lowe (308GT4) and Ian Hetherington in the second of the three 360/Chs entered.

In the "O" class Richard Smeeton was by far the quickest in his 360, ahead of Simon Bartholomew's F355.

In the run-up to the start time there was much dithering about tyre choice. The skies were heavy and grey, with intermittent drizzle, making the choice difficult. Most cars sat in the paddock on jacks before finally plumping for dry tyres as the field headed for the assembly area.

On the green light Culver made a brilliant start and was easily the quickest into Redgate corner. Behind him, however, was a tight bunch of cars as Seale got mixed up with the two flat-12's starting behind him and spun in front of the entire remainder of the field at the exit of Redgate. Miraculously everyone avoided contact but it enabled Culver to make a clean getaway which extended to half the distance of the pit straight by the time they came round on their first lap. Eyes popped as it was noticed that Richard Smeeton had somehow moved his "O" class 360 into second place from eleventh on the grid and he stayed there for several laps until first Hetherington and then Carrera moved passed him. Cosby, in the meantime, had been badly delayed by the Redgate incident and had fallen way behind.

Chasing up through the field was Robin Ward (355/Ch), who started tenth but, revelling in the increasingly drizzly conditions, began to pick off the cars in front until on the very last lap he managed to catch and pass Smeeton to nick fourth place.

At the front Culver's seemingly unassailable lead was however, being eroded. Carrera, using his many years of racing experience, first passed Hetherington and then almost closed on Culver on the very last lap. Hetherington duly finished third, Ward fourth, followed by "O" class winner Smeeton and then came three 355/Chs in the order of Phil Nuttall, Shaun Powell and Tony Jones.

Alan Cosby was an unfortunately retirement, having felt that his car was behaving oddly - it turned out to be mismatched tyres. After his spin Seale spent a long time trying to restart his engine and re-joined in dead last place but worked his way back up to 12th overall and fifth in his class for some valuable championship points which will stand him in good stead come the end of the season.

Tony Jones achieved a stunning fastest lap of the race well ahead of everyone else and it was obvious that he had caught a good clear lap during the dryer part of the race.

It was a good season-opener and provided interesting indications of battles to come. Round 2 of the championship takes place at Castle Combe on 16 April 2001. Don't miss it.