PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE

PADDOCK STORIES: ROUNDS 4 & 5 : DONINGTON PARK - 24/25 MAY 2003

• Sometimes there are advantages to racing road cars. Graham Reeder decided to use brand new race gloves for the classic race. However when the cars were called on to the grid and he put the new gloves on he realised that they were still tied together. With great presence of mind he used the car's cigarette lighter to burn through the cord and all was well.
  
  
• Quite a number of people commented that it was a good job the Club's Ferrari races propped up the Ferrari end of the meeting. The European 360 Challenge managed to put 18 cars on the "gentlemen's" grid, with just ten appearing in the "experts'" category. We had 28 PMFC entries, with a further 21 for the Formula Classic race, although there were a couple of duplications.
  
  
• Speaking of the European 360s, we can, for the first time, hold up our heads as far as lap times are concerned. And how! Our quickest 360 runner (Ian Flux) had a 1:13.9 whereas the best our continental friends could do was a 1:15.2s. Time was when we were anything up to three seconds a lap slower. And some of their drivers were pretty handy, like Ange Barde
  
  
• A Ferrari cavalcade had been arranged for lunchtime and Peter Everingham, armed with only a megaphone, manfully managed to put over 100 cars out on to the track. Something seemed to snap with a few people at the sight of a race track. They slid their cars out from the car park in Tesco power slides, engines bouncing off rev limiters, crunched gear changes, before then having to slam the anchors on as the cavalcade frequently came to a complete halt. Maybe these budding racers would like to take in the odd hillclimb or even a PMFC race as a suitable showcase for their undoubted skill.
  
  
• A proper pro, Ian Flux made no excuses when it came to explaining his spin in race 2. "I went too quick and spun it" was all he said. Not a mention of the usual oil on the track, being tapped from behind, a wandering backmarker, old tyres, poison dart from the grandstand, and all the rest of it. Hope he comes back for more, he's a good yardstick for the regulars.
  
  
• The Formula Classic experiment was overwhelmingly voted a success. A slightly motley collection of cars appeared but there was some great and, above all, clean racing with a number of first-timers and hillclimbers taking part. Everyone wore a big grin afterwards and it is hoped to get an even bigger field for the second race, which takes place on 13/14 September at Castle Combe.
  
  
• The Roden Motorsport/ Scuderia Ecosse 360GT ran a few demonstration laps during the lunch break, along with an F1 car. It has to be said, and may God forgive us, that the brand new 360 sounded like an old bag of nails when it fired up in the paddock, coughing and spluttering and not sure what to do with itself at those low revs. Once on the track it sounded better, but where has that deep sweetness of a 360/Ch gone?
  
  
• Somehow Richard Allen managed to lock himself out of his motorhome in the paddock. We are reliably informed that it took his Essex mates no more than five seconds to have a coat-hanger inside, undo the door, nick the radio and have the wheels off.
  
  

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