Reports > Castle Combe HSCC 50th Anniversary meeting Sunday
Debut in FF2000 for Wayne Poole
The Sunday part of the HSCC's 50th Anniversary meeting double header at Combe on Sunday April 23rd saw the WPR team enter Guy Parr's Fiesta and Steve Bracegirdle in the team's Mini for the Saloon Car race and the race debut of the team's Formula Ford 2000 Van Diemen RF81 in the URS class. There had been no opportunity to test the Van Diemen beforehand but Wayne was undaunted saying that 'I sat in it on Tuesday!' and looking forward to the first outing.
In practice the Van Diemen's battery gave up after a single lap but a time in the 1m 18s was enough to keep the WPR team boss off the back of the grid. Running on 4 year old tyres and suffering from a cold weren't going to help a charge through the field. Despite all this, a strong first lap saw Wayne make up 6 places and maintained this position for a number of laps until a deflating tyre brought about his retirement after 9 laps. A best lap in the 1m 13s in the circumstances showed what might be achieved in the future.
In the Saloon Car race Guy Parr qualified the Fiesta 21st in a 39 car field with Steve Bracegirdle a little further back. A good start saw Guy improve on his starting position and get past a couple of cars at Camp on the first lap but this was to no avail as the race was quickly red flagged. In the ensuing re-start Guy was pushed off the track, losing a few places. However, a good drive back through the field, with plenty of overtaking, saw Guy finish an encouraging 13th. In contrast Steve had a good first lap, coming round just one place ahead of Guy but Lap 2 wasn't so successful with 4 cars getting past! Things then settled down and Steve ran on to the finish without any problems.
