Castle Combe Race Report

Six weeks ago I’d never raced a car. This weekend I lined up against Big Healeys at Castle Combe.

The Ian Cox Memorial Race is part of the Autumn Classic, and it’s a proper grid — Healey 3000s and Sprites sharing the same piece of tarmac, which means being passed by a lot of cars with a lot more engine than mine. Twenty-six of us went out.

I’m here because Richard Woolmer talked me into it. I’d done exactly one race meeting before, and one evening on the sim learning which way Castle Combe went. That was the sum total of my preparation.

Twentieth of twenty-six, on a 1:28.383.

The lap came on my last go round, which has become something of a theme — I’m still building up through a session rather than arriving on the pace. It’s the right way to learn a circuit with as little run-off as Castle Combe has. It isn’t how you qualify well. Something to work on.

Fifth in class. Five places gained from where I started.

My quickest lap was a 1:26.835, and it came on lap 13 of 14 — a second and a half faster than anything I’d managed in the morning. That’s the bit I’m most pleased with. Not the position; the fact that I was still finding time in the closing laps rather than hanging on.

For context, Richard set the class fastest lap on a 1:23.002, and the outright fastest of the race was a 1:19.900. I’m not near that, and I shouldn’t be — most of this field has been racing since before I bought the shell. But the gap is closing, and it’s closing through laps rather than anything else.