PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE

PADDOCK STORIES: ROUND 1: SNETTERTON
6 APRIL 2003

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• The professionalism of the teams gets better and better. In particular the Stewart Roden equipé transporter and pit paraphernalia were very impressive and also the new Damax four-car transporter reflected great credit upon the team.
  
  
• Jason Hughes' new JMH outfit had a weekend from hell. Their new truck failed to be completed in time, their rental truck broke down, and one of their 360s (that of Phil Burton) suffered various mechanical problems which culminated in a fuel pump failure and with no spare available the car had to be withdrawn. A shame because in private testing Phil had put in some good times. Then, to round off a bad weekend, one of their other cars, that of Terry Coleman, got severely dented in the barriers and will need much work.
  
  
• There were some interesting newcomers to the series, two of them Danish (both in 355s). Erik Oktner intends to commute over for all the PMFC races, whereas Bo McCormick already lives over here. Both Chris Niarchos and Peter Sowerby, in their 360/Chs, also impressed, with the former finishing third and the latter holding an easy fourth place until his retirement with transmission failure.
  
  
• Great to see Marco Attard back. He had only recently bought John Greasley's 360/Ch, had had no prior testing and had just come over to Snetterton as an interruption to his skiing holiday. He found the handling of the car somewhat daunting but, with proper testing, will surely become an absolute front-runner.
  
  
• The Snetterton paddock weighbridge has a life of its own. Consternation when some cars were found to be as much as 29kgs underweight - until it was discovered that by just pushing them forward a bit the missing weight suddenly came back. And these things are meant to be certified ....... More serious is the noise problem with many cars failing, but the regulations don't allow exhaust mods to the factory-spec 355 and 360 Challenge cars.
  
  
• On the Saturday Swifty had finally reached his three score years and ten. At a private dinner with a few pals in the evening he was presented with a wonderful Dexter Brown painting of No. 11, and on race day Jim and Janet Race presented him with a very bosomy cake on behalf of all the competitors. In celebration he went round the circuit two seconds quicker than ever before.
  
  
• Speaking of Jim and Janet, they had their usual excellent catering facilities available, assisted by Lynn and Derek Seymour and a few others. It gave us somewhere to huddle from that cold Snetterton wind.
  
  
• T cars? Yes it is true. There could soon be some around. Phil Burton, of course, already has two 360/Chs and Terry Coleman was seen in discussion with Gary Culver, whose 360/Ch is still for sale. Robert Carrington was also seen in discussion with someone who wanted to take his 360/Ch over to the Spa double-header, which Robert was not planning on doing.
  
  
• Lap records took a bit of a pounding, with no less than three 355/Chs below Tony Jones's record - Ted Reddick, Chris Catt and Henry Lawson all ended up below. Lewis Carter also took another three quarters of a second off the 360/Ch record he set last year. Freddy Moss's "O" class record, however, remained untouchable.
  

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