HSCC Wolds Trophy: Cadwell Park
24-25 May 2025
The main focus of the weekend was the 50th birthday celebrations for Historic Formula Ford 2000 with almost 40 competitors and four races, including a championship race on Saturday and the Grand Final on Sunday.
The HFF2000 celebration races were supported by a terrific collection of both closed and open wheel grids, providing an excellent weekend of racing at this delightful parkland circuit in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds.
70s Road Sports opened the event after lunch on Saturday, the 25 car grid flooding the circuit with a kaleidoscope of colour. With damp conditions from the early morning qualifying session jumbling the grid, competitors constantly re-arranged themselves into ever changing patterns as the Porsche 911 of John Williams made it’s escape from pole position, completing the first lap with a 7sec advantage.
It took the quick and agile 1600cc TVR Vixen of David Tomkinson 7 laps from 13th on the grid to dislodge the well driven Alfa GTV of Ben Brain and move into a podium position, Howard Payne then squeezed ahead of George Daws’ lovely Datsun 240Z on the final lap in his Lotus Europa from 14th on the grid to grab 3rd overall.
Almost unnoticed was the star drive star from the MGB-GT V8 of Mark Bennett, gaining 15 places in his climb from 22nd on the grid to 7th at the flag.
With order restored for race 2, John Williams quickly established a cushion leaving the others to squabble over the final podium positions, David Tomkinson hung onto 2nd whilst George Daws made a last gasp pass on Howard Payne and the Marcos GT3000 of Nic Strong in the final two corners to steal 3rd place by 0.059sec.
Behind the podium places the racers swapped positions from corner to corner each lap, leaving the commentator breathless. The entertaining guest Novas hunted as a pack in pursuit of Alex Childs’ Alfa Romeo GT and behind them the TVR 3000M of Alan Williamson hung on for a narrow victory from the enthusiastically driven Nova of young Ewan Lince and the Alfa Sprint of Tim Hays, these three cars covered by just 0.8 tenths of a second as they crossed the finish line, resulting in big smiles all round.
70s Road Sports also scored a first in the HSCC paddock with the Morgan Plus 8 of William Bibb not only racing on Sustain synthetic fuel but also winning Class A in race 2. 70s should have a second car racing on synthetic fuel at Donington next month and the hope is that it’s use will grow throughout the grid during the remainder of season.
The One-Litre F3 ‘screamers’ were joined by their European counterparts at Cadwell Park with this meeting also marking the first round of the European Historic F3 Championship.
Peter de la Roche scored two dominant wins with a pair of superbly measured drives in his Alexis Mk17. Jason Timms in his Brabham BT21, was able to leapfrog Ross Drybrough’s Merlyn MK14A to finish 2nd after Charlie Martin was forced to retire his De Sanctis F3-69 with handling problems.
Christoph Widmer was the first of the European visitors in 4th with his Brabham BT18A just 0.190sec ahead of the Chevron B17 of Francois Derossi.
Jason Timms got an excellent start and led for part of the first lap in Sunday’s race, before Peter de la Roche reeled him back in. Unfortunately Jason was forced to retire on lap 11 with a broken suspension joint, leaving Peter with a comfortable lead over the Brabham BT18 of Andrew Hibberd and Ross Drybrough. Christoph Widmer and Francois Derossi were again the best of the Europeans.
The Historic Formula 2000 birthday celebrations started with a qualification race early Saturday afternoon, with the first 10 from that race joining the championship race later in the afternoon. Victory went to the Delta T78/79 of Anthony Denham ahead of Adrian Reynard, still demonstrating the effectiveness of his own designs.
The first Championship race of the weekend was initially lead by the Reynard SF77 of Ben Glasswell before a broken suspension component forced his retirement leaving Graham Fennymore to take the victory ahead of Michael Moyers driving another of Adrian Reynard’s SF79. Michael Moyers had made a great start, leapfrogging Andrew Storer’s SF79 and then passing Callum Grant on the outside. Callum, driving Ian Pearson’s SF79, kept hold of third, despite the best efforts of Benn Simms, who had progressed rapidly up the order from tenth on the grid.
For the Grand Final both Graham Fennymore and Michael Moyers made excellent starts quickly opening a gap between themselves and the chasing Callum Grant and Ben Simms. After a short safety car period which closed the field, Michael Moyers fought back and despite pushing extremely hard on the final lap could not quite overhaul Graham to steal the victory.
Ben Glasswell had an excellent run to third, starting from 21st place having retired from Race1. He quickly made his way up to the front with a series of fastest laps, passing the entire grid with the exception of the first two positions and shrugging off strong defences from Callum Grant and Ben Simms.
Overall an excellent birthday party for Historic Formula Ford 2000.
Frazer Gibney won both combined Historic Roadsports and Historic Racing Saloons races, but the Lotus Elan driver needed to stay alert. In race 1, under pressure from Mark Godfrey’s quick Lotus Seven, Frazer made a slight error which left him over a second behind Mark. Frazer then became a man on a mission to make good the deficit and retake the lead, which from the timesheets looked like a comfortable win after Mark slowed on the final lap with mechanical issues.
Mark Watts upheld the Historic Saloon honours in entertaining style, having missed qualifying and starting from the back of the grid. Mark’s big white Mustang growled it’s way around the Park clawing it’s way up the order by gobbling up the smaller cars in it’s path to finish 3rd. Sadly we were deprived of the expected challenge from Neil Wood’s beautiful black Anglia when the gearbox issues resulted in an early retirment.
Over the first lap and a half of race 2 Frazer was watching his mirrors closely as the Lotus 7 of Jonathan Stringer loomed steadily larger until suddenly retiring to the paddock with a suspected head gasket failure, leaving Frazer to put on a ‘strictly’ display of car control, dancing his nimble Lotus through the Hall Bends on repeat.
Ant Reeley’s Lotus, which had retired from race 1, was back on song for Sunday and held off the mighty Mustang for a while before Mark found a gap on this narrow and twisty circuit just large enough to thread a Mustang through and moved up to the second step of the podium.
Peter Micklewright in his Elan held off the close attentions of Mike Stephenson’s lovely Lotus Cortina whilst the Elan of Mervyn Selwyn had the boxy shape of Antony Warnes Austin A40 filling it’s mirrors. Meanwhile the Fiat 600 Abarth of Stephen Chapman (complete with open engine cover) buzzed around the circuit without missing a beat, sounding like a tuned sewing machine to the delight of all the spectators.
There is quality in depth in Historic Formula Ford with potential winners throughout the top ten which provides scintillating racing. On this occasion Sam Mitchell and Callum Grant were the brightest amongst a galaxy of stars in both Historic Formula Ford encounters.
Sam started Race 1 from pole and spent the race trading places with Callum at least once a lap before Callum squeezed across the finishing line just 0.214sec in front.
An equally enthralling contest continued behind the leading pair, Danny Stanzl held third before lawn mowing on the mountain and dropping to sixth. Danny had been scraping with Matt Wrigley, Ben Powney in the Scalextric Jamun T3. Christian Goller’s Lola T202 started from 12th, but after a series of quick laps hauled himself into the chasing pack. After much entertaining racing Matt Wrigley emerging as the leader of this group to finish third in his Merlyn Mk11A/20
In Race 2 Sam Mitchell and Callum Grant in equally matched Merlyn Mk20s, repeatedly switched places throughout the twenty-minute race. Callum held the lead going into the final lap, but Ben drafted ahead at the crucial moment, grabbing the win by 0.214s.
With the Wolds Trophy being awarded to the aggregate winner of both Historic Formula Ford races, Callum won the trophy by just two-thousandths of a second after 26 laps and 40mins of racing. Behind, Tom Gadd worked his way up to third having started eighth and taken some time to get into podium contention, having had to duck, dive and draft his way around Ben Powney, Matt Wrigley, Christian Goller and Danny Stanzl
Thoroughly entertaining racing from a brilliant championship.
Jamie Thwaites and his World TCR Alfa Romeo Giulietta were the undisputed stars of the Hitek Alfa Romeo & Italian Intermarque Championship at Cadwell Park, dominating both races.
Whilst Jamie, Jack Berry and Tony Broom took up squatters’ rights on the podium, entertaining racing is something we are growing to expect from this grid of well presented and spectacular looking cars
Jack Carter was the Turismo Class winner in his 147 just ahead of the battling Twin Spark Alfa 156’s of James and Richard Ford, being separated by 0.384sec in Race 1 and 0.469sec in Race 2 which mirrored many of the close battles throughout this entertaining grid.
The FJHRA Formula Juniors made their first guest appearance of the year at this event. In the front engine encounter Adrian Russell took a pair of popular wins in his Condor S2, leading home Alex Morton in a similar Condor and the Elva 100 of Mark Woodhouse in the first encounter. In the second race Adrian and Alex held onto the first two positions while Charles Cook in his Nike Mk1 snatched 3rd from Mark Woodhouse by less than half a second.
After a busy weekend Callum Grant was the man to beat in the both rear engined Formula Junior races. Driving Adam Sykes’s Merlyn Mk5/7 he made his ambitions obvious very early by getting a great start in Race 1 and quickly building up a comfortable lead over the first two laps. Callum’s Merlyn was the only car to lap in the 1:30s and this speed carried him to a comfortable win.
Nic Carlton-Smith was second in his Lotus 20 after his closest challenger, Andrew Hibberd, was forced to retire before completing the first lap.
The rear engine Junior’s rounded off an excellent weekend of racing with the Historic Sports Car Club, Callum Grant’s second race went very much the same way as the first, with a good start building into an unassailable lead.
Nic Carlton-Smith had much stiffer opposition this time, from the Lotus 20 of Nathan Metcalfe. Nathan launched an attack mid race which was stoutly defended by Nic before Nathan finally settled for third leaving Nic to collect his second runners up trophy of the weekend.
CREDITS:
Cadwell Park weekend summary created from individual championship reports written by Rachel Harris-Gardiner
All images by Motorsport Classics Media