Phil Myatt led race one from Sammie Fritchley for all but 38/1000ths of a second: sadly for him it was the last 38/1000ths of a second. Coming out of the final corner, Sammie went left and Phil moved to block her, Sammie jinked right, out of the slipstream and engaged in a drag race down to the line… to take it by the narrowest of margins. It was so narrow that at least one official, who obviously had not been to a, let us say, well publicised chain of opticians lately, waved Phil into the winners enclosure…

Unusually, it had been a two horse (well, four horses, I suppose) race for the lead. The rolling start seemed to confuse some and Phil stepped on the gas early from pole, clearly he had been taking lessons on rolling starts from Sebastian Vettel (or maybe it was the other way round and Vettel has been taking lessons from Phil), chased by Peter Dalkin, who had qualified second, and Sammie, until Peter had a big moment at the Esses on lap 2, going on the grass and then across the track, doing brilliantly to keep it facing the right way and amazingly not collecting anyone, although by now he was about 14th.

The battle for third was now led by Peter Rundle and Lien Davies, with David O’Keeffe (the man with the most mispronounced name in 2CV racing) showing an interest along with Michael Fox (no, not that one) and Darren Baker. At the back, Jessica Owen had gone off and Christine Thompson unluckily spun on the damp track lifting off as the yellow flags came out. After an exciting battle it was the experience and race craft of David that took third (in the camera car, live on Motors TV!), one hundredth of a second clear of Peter Rundle and half a second ahead of Lien.

Race two was all about the old and the new. The old (relatively speaking, and I hope he will forgive me for describing him thus) was Paul Robertson, having got his race licence back the previous Wednesday, climbing into a race car for the first time in three years; the new was young Katy Storey, daughter of erstwhile former club chairman Mick (UK Atomic Energy employee and therefore a man for whom pretty much everything is rocket science!) in sparkling new overalls, having her first ever race and looking very nervous (although nothing compared to her parents…) Steve Panas was pleased to be on the grid at all, his car having suffered from a baffling refusal to fire up, and as he said ‘when you see the club’s finest technical brains shaking their heads and looking puzzled you start to think you might not get out for the race’. He would, however, shortly be a little less happy…

This was a proper 2CV race with half a dozen cars squabbling for the lead. Paul didn’t make the best start and confessed to being a bit rusty on rolling starts, but worked his way up the field as the battle raged between Sammie, Mark Turner (in the Myatt car), Wayne Cowling and Peter Rundle, with Greg Wheeler joining in. Paul was catching up, however, setting fastest lap on lap 5, dicing with his Tete Rouge team mate Sammie, while Peter and Greg led the way. Coming up to the finish line Greg was ahead and must have thought he’d got it but…  coming down the inside… you’ve guessed it, Paul Robertson… by a bit of a bigger winning margin this time, 0.05 seconds, not close at all really. 1.02 seconds covered the first six cars.

Further back, Mark Waghorn in the camera car was entertaining the viewers at home by spinning, but unfortunately behind him Steve Panas spun as well and (after all that work) collided with the unfortunate James Sutcliffe, with both cars sustaining heavy damage. Fortunately both drivers were unscathed. And Katy Storey came home safely after a minor off and having what seemed like the entire field swarm up behind her on the back straight to lap her…

Mention should be made of Dodo Juice who kindly sponsored both races; and eagle eyed readers may have spotted the absence of the name of Ainslie Bousfield, who can normally be relied upon to be there or thereabouts; well, he was up in the commentary box, limbering up for David Coulthard’s role as expert summariser. A new career beckons.

Back in the paddock, Paul Robertson was as ecstatic as might have been expected, considering he had been twelfth on the first lap. Sammie smiled and muttered something about team orders; and indeed there was a Ferrari in the paddock among the 2CVs, so…

Qualifying for race 1:

Qualifying for race 2:

Race 1:

Race 2:

Full results can be downloaded as a PDF file by clicking here.