Race Report: Cadwell Park, 10 September 1972

It was originally intended to run this round of the Lombank North Central Championship in two heats and a final but a large number of non-starters meant that there would be just the one race.

Practice was a farce as after the session was over the drivers were informed that owing to a shortage of timekeepers their times didn’t count! With the cancellation of the heats an additional 20 minute practice session was added with times from this session giving the grid positions. Sadly this turned out to be a bit of a disaster when both the Iberian Ensigns of Mike Walker and Rikki von Opel blew their engines and non-started and Bob Evans spun his March at Charlie’s and was collected by Peter Hull rendering both cars unfit to race. John Bisignano (Martini Mk9) was lucky to make the race after a collision with John Littler’s Ensign.

The race was another Williamson demonstration run, he lead from the flag gradually pulling away from the rest of the pack to win by a comfortable 12 seconds. Second place was a battle between Sutcliffe and Brise with Mass just managing to hold onto these two in fourth, Brise had a bit of a moment on the Mountain on lap 6 delaying Mass and letting Sutcliffe get away. However Sutcliffe’s attempts to clinch the championship at this round were domed to failure when his Holbay expired on lap 7 and the GRD retired. Brise seemed safe in second but his engine began to falter and by lap 11 Mass was right on his tail but Brise was still quicker in a straight line and he held on to take second by 1.2 seconds.
Initially Harness and Ginn were battling over fifth and sixth but Ginn got by Harness at Coppice on lap 3 to take fifth which became fourth when Sutcliffe retired, however all Ginn’s good work was for nothing when he spun at Mountain on lap 12 resuming in eighth. Randy Lewis and Pierre-François Rousselot were next up and fighting hard, Lewis in front until lap 7 when Rousselot got ahead only to drop behind again when Lewis retook the place at Coppice on lap 10. Harness found himself under increasing pressure from Lewis and Rousselot and he spun at the Mountain on lap 14 taking Lewis with him although both were able to continue further down the field. This left Rousselot to finish fourth ahead of Spitzley who had just behind Lewis and Rousselot until he had joined the spinners at Mountain on lap 11. Notable retirements were Bisignano who spun out of fifth on lap 1 at everybody’s favourite spot, Mountain and Stan Matthews who was out with a serious lack of brakes.

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