Apart from the marque and club displays, including an expansive Ferrari Owners’ Club one which had a larger
than anticipated turnout, there was plenty of activity on the track, with races in the BRSCC Alfa Romeo
Championship, an Italy versus the Rest of the World race, Ferrari Club Racing Series and rounds of the Pirelli
Ferrari Formula Classic series. There were also historic F1 demonstration runs, featuring the likes of
Benetton, Dallara and Footwork Arrows, together with Italian Supercar , motorcycle and Abarth demonstration
runs, the latter encompassing a wide and colourful variety of models wearing the “Scorpione” badge. These
ranged from the popular Fiat 500 based examples, through a selection of 600 and 850 based examples, their
petite but fast GT cars, to an evocation of the one-off Abarth 1000otr Bertone Prototipo, which appeared at the
1965 Turin Motor Show, since when it has disappeared without trace.
It was a treat to enjoy the aural delights of “real” normally aspirated F1 cars, whilst the pair of Pirelli Ferrari
Formula Classic races had 24 car entries and provided really close racing between the main protagonists for
the overall victory, as well as for the class placings. At the head of the field it was the 355 Challenge cars of
Tris Simpson, Tim Mogridge and Wayne Mars that had splendid clean and hard fought battles in both races,
with Tris Simpson winning Race 1 from Wayne Mars and Tim Mogridge, with less than 0.8sec covering them
at the chequered flag. In Race 2 the win was taken by Tim Mogridge, with Tris Simpson runner-up and Wayne
Mars taking the final podium place, although this time the spread between them was a full 3.5secs! In the pair
of Ferrari Club Racing Series races, victory in Race 1 went to the 458 Challenge of Gary Culver ahead of the
488 GTE of Witt Gamski and the 430 Challenge of Wayne Mars, whilst in Race 2 Witt Gamski reversed the
positions with Gary Culver to take the win, with Vance Kearney’s 430 Challenge completing the podium.
Keith Bluemel
09/2019.
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