The final weekend of July is traditionally Oulton Park Gold Cup weekend, and 2025 marked the second year that the Superformance Ferrari Club Classic Series had been invited to participate.  19 Ferrari’s assembled in the Cheshire parkland sunshine and took to the pretty undulating track for Friday afternoons Qualifying session.

QUALIFYING

The Group 5 355 Challenge of Tris Simpson topped the timesheets followed by the Spider version piloted by Colin Sowter less than 2 tenths of a second off the pole position pace.  In third came Thruxton star Gary Culver in his consistently quick Group 4 328 GTB.  Wayne Marrs (Group 6 355 Challenge) would start alongside Culver with the remaining Group 5 355 Challenge cars of Tim Mogridge, Stuart Bitmead and Philip Connell occupying rows 3 and 4 of the grid together with the fastest of the Group 3 runners, Chris Butler (328 GTB).  Row 5 would be a Group 4 lockout with the 328 GTS of Myles Poulton just half a second faster than Lewis Sharman in the Superformance 348 Challenge.  Row 6 consisted of the Group 3 328 GTB’s of Nigel Sayles and Peter Everingham ahead of Tony Claringbould’s Group 4 Mondial T and Robert Greaves in the Group 3 328 GTB.  Group 2 pole went to Jago Keen (308 GTB) who would start in P15 alongside Ray Ferguson’s F355 Berlinetta.  Richard Fenny (308 GT4), Robin Fisk (Mondial QV) and William Moorwood (308 GT4) would round out the grid.

RACE 1

Race 1 took place on Saturday morning in front of an enthusiastic and knowledgeable crowd of spectators filling the spectator enclosures around the circuit.  As the red lights went out there was a ‘heart in mouth’ moment for everyone as Colin Sowter struggled the get the 355 Spider off the front row of the grid.  Chris Butler took to the still damp grass in avoidance but thankfully his experience enabled him to miss both Sowter and the armco barrier and carefully guide his immaculate 328 GTB back onto the track without appearing to lose too many positions.

Having fallen to the very back of the field before the first corner Sowter then set about a recovery drive, overtaking 9 cars to get back up to 10^th position by the end of lap 1, just behind Chris Butler.  At the front of the field the positions remained fairly static, the exception being novice competitor Philip Connell who moved up to 4^th position behind Mogridge, Culver and race leader Simpson.  Connell was having a fantastic drive successfully defending from the closely following and far more experienced Marrs in his more modified Group 6 355 Challenge. However on lap 6 while exiting the fast Cascades corner Connell dropped a wheel off the back of the kerb and lost the back end of his bright yellow 355 Challenge.  Unfortunately this put Connell on a backwards trajectory towards the unforgiving safety barrier which protects the lake and his car made heavy contact bouncing back across the track.  With a stranded and immovable Ferrari on the track and repairs to the barrier required the race was red flagged at just over half-distance, and the result was declared at the end of lap 4, the tight curfew and busy timetable preventing any possibility of a restart.  Thankfully Philip was fine and given the all clear after a check-up in the Circuit Medical Centre and expects his car to be repaired and racing again at Castle Combe in September.  So it was a win for Gary Culver followed by Tris Simpson and Tim Mogridge.  Further back the racing was equally as close with a race long battle between the 308 GT4’s of Richard Fenny and William Moorwood.  Moorwood would eventually find a way past Fenny just before the red flags flew, but with the countback to lap 4 the history books will record Fenny as being the GT4 victor on this occasion.

RACE 2

Race 2 took place on Sunday afternoon with the grid determined from the finishing order of Race 1, placing Gary Culver on pole position ahead of Tris Simpson, Tim Mogridge and Wayne Marrs.  At the start thankfully everyone got away cleanly and settled into the their respective battles during the opening laps.  An unfortunate first lap casualty was Colin Sowter who spun on approach to the Shell Oils Hairpin having been caught out by the cars ahead braking earlier than he’d expected, glancing the safety barrier fortunately without incurring too much damage but it was enough for Colin to retire the 355 Spider to the Pitlane at the end of the lap.  Oulton Park, whilst being a fantastic circuit to drive is notoriously difficult to overtake on, so it was no surprise that the running order remained largely unchanged throughout the 11 laps, with only Stuart Bitmead in the midfield managing to overtake a couple of cars which returned him to his original starting position of sixth overall having dropped to eighth on lap 1.  Up front though it was a different story with Mogridge defending hard from Simpson and Marrs for second position, which in turn allowed race leader Gary Culver to pull away.  Going onto lap 8 Marrs managed to get a good run on Simpson into Old Hall and completed the overtake, and one lap later Mogridge made a small mistake which allowed Marrs and Simpson through.  Marrs then set about chasing Culver in the closing laps but the clock had counted down from 20 minutes and the chequered flag awaited Gary Culver who took the win from the fast charging Marrs who posted the fastest lap on the final tour.  Simpson completed the podium ahead of Mogridge and the Group 3 winning 328 GTB of Chris Butler who had a somewhat lonely race in fifth. Butler’s consistency had not gone unnoticed though as the Oulton Park commentary team crowned him the RNR Performance Cars Driver of the Weekend. Jago Keen would again take the Group 2 spoils following a race long multi-class battle with the Group 4 Mondial T of Tony Claringbould and the Group 3 328 GTB of Robert ‘Greavesy’ Greaves.

At the prizegiving Club Competitions Director (and double race winner) Gary Culver made special mention of William Moorwood who had announced that this would be his last competitive outing.  I’m sure we will continue to see William around the Paddock and hopefully will see the recognisable red and yellow 308 GT4 on the grid again in the future at some point.  Wayne Marrs won the Superformance Scrutineer’s Merit Award for “presenting a car which is a credit to himself, the club and preparer”.