Easter Raceday at Combe

Easter Monday is the start of the motor racing season at Castle Combe, the place I class as my home track despite being a 150 mile roundtrip along the M4. It all stems from when Kim was at Bath Uni, we used to drive up to the track for the odd race meet and it just kind of stuck with me. 13 years later I’m still making the trip to the first race meet of the year. With the Speedybump getting bigger Kim opted to pass on the day as its usually a bit chilly and as we always manage at least a lap of the two mile circuit, quite tiring. She was replaced with our friend Phil, popping his Combe cherry as well.

Parked up near the track we grabbed bacon rolls and wandered into the paddock to get up close to the cars as they were being worked on. Each championship is given its own area and with 11 races on the bill for the day there was loads to see.

AWD Cup




Sports & GT




Formula Ford




Alfa Romeos




Saloons


MR2 Cup


And the Locost championship, where minor modifications are carried out with a sledgehammer!


During the morning there are qualifying sessions, we watched the Sports & GTs session where a stunning Sierra RS500 met a bent end on its first lap out of the pits.









After a short lunch break it was time for the racing to start, with races lasting around 10-15 laps, its fast paced action and a quick turn around between rounds.









During the day we moved from one corner to the next to get some variety in the photos. Throughout each race we tried to pick a driver to cheer on, including the Locost driver from Pontifract!















The start of a season can go one of two ways, everyone takes it steady finding their feet and avoiding the door to door panel bashing, or they go flat out sending wing mirrors flying. The MR2 chaps picked the latter!









The AWD cars were far more stable and kept apart from each other, with up to 900hp I'd take it careful as well!





The Locost drivers followed the lead of the MR2s and there was plenty of wheel to wheel tangles.







As the day drew to a close the open race at the end brought a wide variety of cars, the winning Lotus chose to start from the pitlane 10 seconds after the rest to give the others a chance, after a couple of laps he was through to the lead.





Cold and tired we headed home, this will probably be my only trip to the track this year as house moving and babies start to take over every spare minute, but never say never!

The rest of the photos are here. I’ll take credit for about half of them, with Phil pointing the lens for the rest.

Steve.