Reports > Late May bank holiday Castle Combe 2021
Disappointment for Mitchell but podiums for Bracegirdle at Combe
With the public at last allowed to return and spectate the WPR team were looking to Ben Mitchell (Richard Hudson-Evan's Classic Auction Review backed Van Diemen RF99) and James Colborn (Van Diemen RF88) to continue their good starts to the 2021 season. Steve Bracegirdle (Van Diemen RF89 and Mini Cooper S) joined them for warm and sunny day's racing for a change.
In qualifying it was pretty much a repeat of previous races with Ben qualifying fourth for both races and James and Steve qualifying third and fourth in Class C for both races.
In Race 1 Ben made a good start to take second on the first lap and continued to be part of a hectic four way battle for the lead until the end. After running third for the opening laps he got back to second before dropping to fourth at the finish. Steve got the better start than James and headed him throughout the race to take a good third in Class C.
In Race 2 Ben made another excellent start to hold second at the end of Lap 1. He took the lead on Lap 2, holding it in front of the same three other protagonists from Race 1, and breaking the tow until Lap 6 when he bounced off the rumble-strip and lost the car, ending up in a lonely contact with the armco, which wiped out nearside front and rear corners and some bodywork. Fortunately everything else (including the driver) survived intact but a very disappointing end to the most promising outing so far. James got ahead of Steve at the start but the positions were reversed on Lap 2 and James slowly dropped back and Steve duly took his 2nd third place in Class C of the day.
Steve was also out in the Saloon Car championship race and had a quiet run to finish a couple of laps down on the leader.
Many thanks to Phil Johnson / EDP Photo News for these images for which he retains the copyright.
