Thanks to the pre-race practice session the Sunday before, all teams were ready and agreed to start the race 30 minutes early at 10.30am. At the end of the first heat the pattern had been set with Alan (SSRC) recording a blistering 212 laps, 10 laps ahead of 2nd and 3rd placed Maltesers and English American Racers respectively.

In heat 2 the worrying sound of a crown wheel failing in heat 1 brought the Maltesers McLaren to a halt. Rather than incur the punitive 50 lap penalty of using the spare car, the crown wheel change took 30 laps and a deficit that would be impossible to claw back. A bad strategic move as the crown wheel was to fail again later and the team had to use the spare car.

In the meantime Brendon (Springbok Racing) took advantage of the situation and moved into 2nd place just ahead of EAR with the Maltesers some way back in 4th. At the lunch break, the order was SSRC, Springbok, EAR and the Maltesers.

Our races arealso a social event so the break is an ideal opportunity for the racers to share their experience and subsequently the break overran.

Back to the racing and still two thirds of the race to go. The Maltesers finally took the spare car and were starting to make inroads on 3rd place by the end of heat 5 by 2 laps over EAR. SSRC continued to pile on the laps but Springbok kept them honest but only by the odd lap or two.

When the chequered flag fell the order was 1st SSRC, 2nd Springbok, 3rd EAR, 4th Maltesers with a 50 lap penalty.

The race was true battle of endurance. Lots of close racing and when it takes 30 or 40 laps to make up 10 metres on the car in front it calls for a lot of concentration. Hence the marshals were virtually redundant.

Alan was the lead driver with the best heat score of 213 laps but Razor ran him close with a 209. Oh! What could have been.

Many thanks to all the SSRC members for a great days racing.