Races from the Historic Sports Car Club played an important part in this year’s Castle Combe Autumn Classic, held over the weekend of September 21-22. Notable results were double wins for Andrew Hibberd and Julian Barter.
The hugely popular annual event at the Wiltshire circuit is a key date in the historic racing calendar but, sadly, the 2024 edition was struck by bad weather, notably on Sunday when heavy rain made track conditions challenging.
However, the track was dry on Saturday afternoon when the opening Historic Formula 3 Championship round was held and it delivered one of the races of the weekend as Andrew Hibberd in his Brabham BT18 fended off Peter de la Roche in his Alexis Mk17 by just a tenth of a second after a glorious race-long battle. The two friends and rivals raced wheel-to-wheel for lap after lap, and even though de la Roche only nosed into the lead briefly, the result was always in doubt as Hibberd extended his impressive winning sequence in the championship. A little way back, Ross Drybrough completed the podium with Mark Carter and Simon Armer rounding out the top five.
On Sunday, conditions were rather different after heavy rain early in the morning. This played into the hands of Hibberd who used his Hoosier wet weather tyres to good effect to rush off into the distance and win by a healthy margin. De la Roche struggled for grip in the conditions and finally conceded second place to Carter’s Chevron B15 while Drybrough was a little way back in his Merlyn Mk14A. The two victories set Hibberd up for the final event of the season at Dijon, when he will be favourite to seal the championship crown.
The joint Historic Road Sports, 70s Road Sports and Historic Touring Car grid was superb, with 37 cars lining up at the Wiltshire track. Conditions were very testing for the opening race as Julian Barter (TVR 3000M) and John Williams (Porsche 911SC) made the running. However, Williams was caught out by standing water at Camp corner and slid into the barriers, bringing out the red flag so Barter was confirmed as race winner on the basis of six laps. Fraser Gibney just held off Adrian Russell for second overall and best of the Historic Road Sports, while a mighty performance from Steve Platts took his Singer Chamois up to fourth overall and first of the Touring Car contingent.
At the end of the afternoon, the Road Sports grid returned in slightly drier conditions but still on a very slippery track. Barter was able to stretch away for a resounding victory, while Williams starred with a fighting recovery drive from the back of the grid, passing over 25 cars, to drop into second place in the rapid but now slightly battered Porsche. Gibney and Russell were again almost inseparable, with Gibney taking third and the Historic Road Sports division by just four tenths of a second. Platts dropped in the overall order a little on the drier track, but still finished ninth to be best of the Touring Cars after another tremendous performance.
Unfortunately, the contenders in the Griffiths Haig Trophy only had one race as the delays during Sunday forced the cancellation of their second race at the end of the afternoon. Up front, Tom Waterfield was unstoppable in his Cooper T39 and won at a canter on a treacherous circuit. Malcolm Harrison ran second in his Cooper Bristol and Tony Bianchi managed to keep his Farrelac Allard on track despite the lack of grip to round out the overall podium just.