A Report on the Silverstone Finals October 2009                                              (with the kind permission of Bob Lyell)

Attention paddock
Competitors hoping that the promised barbeque summer, which eventually materialised as an Indian one, would last until 17th October were rewarded with a dry although predominantly cloudy Saturday with temperatures reaching 13 degrees on the thermometer, but feeling more like 8 in the chilly wind.
Ignoring the lure of Dijon eight competitors arrived either leisurely on the Friday to take advantage of a pit garage or early on the Saturday morning to find a space in the paddock and face the inevitable queue for scrutineering at 8.45.
Qualifying started ahead of schedule at 10.07 but saw only seven drivers enjoy a clean incident free 16 mins with Chris Holland setting the pace on the club circuit in his Brabham BT21 with a 1.08 lap. The missing car was number 19 the ex Jenny Baker–Carr Techno of Peter Froude. Preparing to drive to the assembly area he found that he was indeed driving a screamer, but not the affectionate name given to the engine, this was a gearbox which protested loudly when trying to select top.
It was an incident free session, Leif Bosson in his Brabham BT28 (first raced by fellow countryman Ulf Svensson?) made a short pit lane visit after the obligatory 3 laps to check all was well, water consumption and no power above 8,000 RPM the previous day in testing indicating a potential cylinder head problem.
Less apparent was that Grant Saunders resorted to a tow to start his normally well behaved March 703 and late entry Geoff Laycock’s Merlyn MK14 left the assembly area on three cylinders, although it quickly found all four both were an omen of maladies to come.
As the assembly area filled with cars for the race Grant was missing, the weak spark diagnosed after qualifying as the cause of reluctant starting, had now disappeared altogether. Leif was there determined to retain water and in his words “enjoy himself and see the chequered flag”, he would do both.
The race started cleanly and would remain incident free for the 1000cc F3 cars, not so for everyone else but at least those that left the track did so effectively so no pace car or red flag was required. First Geoff would retire on lap 4 after dicing with Barrie Pusey, his engine signalling enough with a 2 cylinder misfire, the remaining ones just providing enough power to limp back to the pits, at least there was no mechanical damage to be seen.
Barrie continued well in his BT21B until on lap 9 when changing down to third for Becketts the engine cut and refused to restart. Having coasted on to the grass the marshals quite correctly pushed him to a safe place. At the end of the race and having cooled it started on the button enabling Barrie to drive back, but he was mistakenly ushered into Parc Ferme to become the finisher who did not finish.
Chris Holland Brabham BT21 won class D crossing the finish line 8th overall, a great performance which confirmed him as the CRC championship winner, well done. He was followed by Baba Yuzaburo Chevron B9 and Andrew Thorpe, third in class whilst collecting signatures, in the ex Tony Keele March 703 now painted blue and orange.
Eight arrived but only four saw the chequered flag, a high attrition rate, looks like it’s going to be another busy winter in the workshop.