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So, sit back and have a look around, we're a friendly bunch and look forward to seeing some new faces out in their TVRs next year.

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Round 22 at Castle Combe brings to a close the TVRCC Speed Championship for 2008, but there could have been no finer conclusion to our most exciting series to date.

Followers of the championship will know that, going into the final round we had three drivers who, between them were only 0.88 points apart! Matthew Oakley whose consistency in the 350bhp purple Griffith has been a joy to behold. Jes Firth whose total, almost blind commitment has seen him throw that Cerbera into bends at speeds and angles which have rewritten the laws of physics and geometry at a stoke. And Paul Edwards whose beautiful but heavily modified T350C has been rewarding and frustrating in equal measure. A sprint season’s maximum score is 200 points achieved once only in the championship’s history by Simon Cole last year. Going into the final round, the leaderboard looked like this:

Matthew Oakley 198.98
Jes Firth 198.67
Paul Edwards 198.10

But it’s not all about the top three. There is sufficient talent in this championship to cause an upset anywhere, but especially at a track as long and difficult as Castle Combe. Actually, it was by no means certain that any of the leading contenders would win on the day.

The weather is the ultimate wildcard at circuits in the west of England and my prediction (in the event of a wet day), was for the victory to go either to a Class A Vixen driven by Stewart Lobley or Mike Roe, or perhaps to an experienced driver such as Tony Bradfield or Alan Davies in a slightly lower powered Class B car running on ordinary road tyres. The scene was set for a superb end of season shootout – and then, guess what, it rained!

The early morning drizzle developed into a deepening depression as our sprinters watched the worsening track conditions from the startline. Surprisingly, practice was pretty enthusiastic considering everything, and towards the end of the morning the track was starting to dry. Owing to the huge range of conditions during the 3 hour practice period it was not really possible to see who was on the pace. However, I couldn’t resist running the algorithms to see what was going on and it was no surprise that the top 3 (on raw data) were Tony Bradfield, Matt Oakley and Alan Davies. Interestingly, just behind the leaders were Adrian Duggleby and Jes Firth. You could not imagine two more different styles, Adrian’s run was tidy, thoughtful and quick; Jes’ car appeared to be radio controlled by a blindfolded small child on Tartrazine. “I really enjoyed that” he enthused on his unexpected return.

It was great to see Steve Hunter and Jo Briars out again in their bright red 350i. Their first event ended in disaster when the fanbelt lunched itself during the wettest event of the year at Debden a few weeks ago. These folks aren’t quitters though; so they came out to join us for another soaking at Castle Combe. It’s probably my imagination but I’m sure we never had weather like this before they joined. Interestingly, Jo was a little quicker than Steve in practice but they were still talking at lunchtime, which I took as a good indication of the strength of their relationship
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Everybody continued to struggle with the appalling conditions but perhaps those most affected were Dave Morris’ 500hp Chevy powered Tuscan racer, and Philip Phedonos’ highly modified flying boudoir which span flamboyantly into the ploughed field towards the end of its second practice lap. Ian Bannister told me he had enjoyed the circuit but came back with sufficient grass in the wheelarches to feed a small herd of cattle throughout the winter. Paul Moakes’ V8S, which has performed so well of late was a little wayward and broke away just before the finish, luckily managing to avoid destroying the timing equipment before crossing the line.

During the lunch break, the rain eased and a breeze blew across the circuit causing it to dry in parts. Then, to our complete amazement the sun came out, the temperature started to rise and the times dropped like a stone. For comparison, our previous track record at this circuit was Matt Oakley’s 87.29 recorded during our first visit in 2007. This year, during his first timed run Jes Firth put in a very sideways 82.99! Edwards hit back with an 83.50 but Matt’s 86.14 was disappointing. Matthew is an experienced driver and I sensed that he was searching out the grip before putting in a blinder to finish. Others in the mix were Duggleby and Bradfield both of whom are superb on their day, the Vixens of Lobley and Roe were flying; Pete Watson, Simon Smith and Tim Scrivens were clambering up the leaderboard but hot novice Mark Everett was under-performing compared with his times last year. He told me he’d been suffering an irritating noise in his car all day, some of which had been coming from the engine. On his last run though, he took over 3 seconds off his time and was back in the upper quartile (whatever that means).

Last run and the weather was cooling fast but more significantly, because our entrants were spread across the classes, our last car out (TN Watson) set off in the dark just before six o’clock! If anybody hears from him, do let me know.

So, who won the championship? Let me put you out of your misery. Paul Edwards’ final run of 82.77 was the quickest of the day, Jes Firth improved his time to 82.97 and Matt Oakley took 2.5 secs off his time to chalk up a creditable 83.58. BUT, on handicap Jes’ time was good enough and the final algorithm times were Firth 81.50, Edwards, 82.06 and Oakley, 82.66. Final top 3 championship points for 2008:

Jes Firth 199.38
Matthew Oakley 198.98
Paul Edwards 198.91

Jes Firth’s points differential won him the final round at Castle Combe and the TVRCC Speed Championship for 2008. He also collects and a nice new set of tyres from our sponsorship partner TOYO Tire.

Championship award winners for 2008 were as follows:

So, that’s it for another year – we look forward to our dinner and presentations evening at Staverton Park; this is where we get together to tell it much better than it really was, then Christmas, and then we do it all over again in 2009.

It really is the best way to waste your time!

Steve Cox