With our leader Duncan (peace and blessings upon his name) having a well earned rest, FJHRA was in the hands of the B Team of Grant & Penny Wilson with the writer in support and under command. It is not always straightforward ( politicians expression for bloody difficult) to write an accurate report when most of the action was taking place about half a lap in front – but here goes.

Free Practice
Free eh? We got 3 laps before a  slicks/wings car demolished itself at Radillon and shed ruined parts across the circuit bringing the “free” show to a premature close. My “misremembered” (another one from the politicians dictionary) schoolboy French must have failed once more- at 33 Euros per lap it didn’t qualify as Free in my wallet. I suppose its like when I buy my chickens at “Point of Lay” – takes about 6 weeks to get an egg out of them!

Qualifying
This was more like it, no particular surprises here the top 6 were Tonetti, Burckhardt, Buhofer,Fyda, Eberhardt and Pete Morton who went extremely well to pip Martin Walford and Marcus Mussa.
In Class A Danielle Salodini was comfortably ahead of Jan Biekens and Michael Ashley Brown.
Class C looked like shaping up for a decent scrap between John Delane and Dan Collins in their Lotus 18s
Same detail in Class D between Chris Chilcott and Chris Drake with Ivo  Goeckmann  going well in the Australian Jolus.
Eric Justesen was in with a chance of class victory with his U2 – he was the only entrant in Class B.

Race 1
Great scraps throughout the field with plenty of overtaking – Tonetti  just holding off Burkhardt by a couple of tenths with Eberhardt and Fyda a few seconds adrift. John Delane looking fit, won Class C, displacing Collins early on and pulling comfortably away.
I missed most of the action up front (that’s not quite accurate  – I missed all of it!) I was having a great dice with John Dowson in his Brabham BT2 – sadly it went wrong for him at the terrifyingly fast Blanchimont curve – I had a close up view of his accident playing out in my mirrors – the car sustained damage to a rear corner and took no further part in proceedings – a real shame – hasten back John.
Richard Utley had even worse misfortune his transmission expired as he let in the clutch to start the green Flag lap – another glorious chapter in the history of Renault gearboxes!
Martin Walford failed to start despite working until the last minute on his engine which had an elusive oil problem.
The top 6 were Tonetti, Burckhardt, Eberhardt, Fyda, Buhofer and Morton.
All the front runners seemed elated by their close racing – if you were hoping I’d provide more detail, then you needed to be on the Pit Wall – I had my limited grey matter fully occupied trying to stay ahead of John Dowson and get ahead of Ivo Goeckmann (I failed)

Race 2
Race 2 looked like being a repeat of race 1 although Walford had cured his engine dramas. I’m told that the top guys again had a dramatically close race – this time Max  Blees in his Brabham BT15 F3 collided with John Fyda’s Lotus, putting himself out and delaying the damaged car of Fyda. There was much discussion about the desirability of having F3 cars race with us since their grip/power ratios are necessarily different. This is another topic for another day – for the moment it is sufficient to say that had we not in previous years had their additional support, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to race at Spa – while on the subject, we had no fewer than 11 withdrawals in the week leading up to the race – we can start 60 cars at Spa – only 32 took part in qualifying.
The complexion of the race altered when a large oil slick appeared on the racing line – starting after La Source hairpin until Pouhon (I think)  At this point Pierro Tonetti led the race (by a narrow margin)from Burckhardt and Morton – at  the downhill off camber Rivage, the leader caught out by the oil and lack of flags  (shown only at Eau Rouge) spun, rejoining in 5th position.
Burckhardt and Morton continued their titanic duel – finishing in that order only half a second apart – Martin Walford finished third, remaining positions were Buhofer, Tonetti, Eberhardt, Fyda and Mussa with Chris Drake comfortable winner of class D next up.

Overall
Happily prizes were plentiful – enough to present well down the field for each race – Poor Steve Futter had gone off on the oil sustaining damage to his Lotus 20 – he was awarded the “BP Gulf of Mexico” award – a rather nice Wheel spinner trophy – Inshallah his damaged Lotus will soon heal – haste ye back Steve.

Class winners on aggregate were;
Class A
1st  Danielle Salodini
2nd Michael  Ashley Brown
3rd Jan Biekens
Class B
1st  Eric Justesen
Class C
1st  John Delane
2nd Dan Collins
3rd Luc Deneve
Class D
1st Chris Drake
2nd Chris Chilcott
3rd Ivo Goeckmann
Class E (and overall)
1st Christoph Burckhardt
2nd Pierro Tonetti
3rd Pete Morton

The entire FJHRA contingent was delighted to see Pete Morton finish 3rd overall – a really great drive in what has never been regarded as the best car out there – quote of the day was from his very proud father – Alex (who non started race 2 with a cracked block) when asked whether the result made up in some small way for the broken engine, he beamed with pleasure explaining how glad he had been to miss the race – otherwise he’d not have been able to watch Pete’s great drive!

The FJHRA heroine was undoubtedly Penny Wilson – obtaining printed results seemed an impossible or at best protracted task – I failed completely but Penny stuck to the task – always emerging with results sheets for everyone and by Sunday, she had the results team trained, efficient and prompt.