Two thrilling Pre-’83 Touring Car contests, including an overdue victory for club stalwart Tom Harvey, were among the highlights of the CTCRC’s penultimate meeting of the season at Snetterton.
On two days of contrasting weather, Pre-’66 Touring Cars also entertained in the latest bouts of a title race that will go to the wire. An eclectic field comprising the club’s other categories showcased the CTCRC’s variety and spectacle.
Pre-’83 Group 1 Touring Cars
The Group 1 Touring Cars proved that you don’t need a massive entry to provide hugely entertaining racing as two very different races were ultimately both won by Pinto-powered Ford Escort Mk1s.
Tom Harvey’s first victory in his own car had been a long time coming, five years on from his maiden win at the same circuit aboard the Mike Luck BMW 320 E21. Success in the wet for Nic Grindrod the following day provisionally sealed the 2026 title.
Last year’s champion Jonathan Corker set the pace in qualifying, his Datsun 510 lapping the three-mile Snetterton 300 circuit 1.2 seconds faster than his nearest challenger. That was 2026 points leader Grindrod, whose session was cut short by his engine suffering a holed block.
Grindrod had already done enough to pip Harvey’s similar car to a place on the front row by just 0.035s. Making a welcome return to the championship after a heavy crash at the Donington season-opener, Carl Shreeve put Tony Crudgington’s Triumph Dolomite Sprint fourth on the timesheets.
Fifth fastest was Tom Butterfield’s glorious V12-powered Jaguar XJS, the Yorkshireman effectively treating the car’s championship debut as an extended test session. He would start alongside Devon traveller Jared Knight’s Ford Escort Mk2.
After a delayed start when a suspected loose lead caused Mike Broadway’s Jaguar XJ6 to grind to a halt, Corker converted pole position into the lead of Saturday’s race.
Most impressive was a flying start by Nick Williamson who’d been consigned to the back of the grid after suffering another gearbox failure in qualifying. He catapulted the big Rover SD1 into second and was looming large in Corker’s mirrors before a big slide on cold tyres gave the leader some breathing room.
Just behind them, Butterfield used his V12 grunt to power into third before Harvey nipped back inside to reclaim the place at Hamilton on the infield section. Knight slotted into fifth ahead of Grindrod. The Birmingham racer had done well to make the grid after a swift engine change, but found his spare to be lacking oomph.
With his tyres getting up to temperature, Williamson homed back in on Corker before thundering into the lead at the end of the second lap. But Corker kept in touch and, when Williamson made a mistake at Riches a lap later, the Datsun swept back past. Harvey followed into second a couple of corners later.
But all was not well aboard the Datsun as an intermittent misfire worsened. Harvey swept around the outside of Brundle – the left-handed first part of the Esses – to grab the lead mid-race, setting the fastest lap on the same tour, before the Japanese machine expired altogether.
Before Harvey’s benchmark, Butterfield’s big Jag had been the fastest car on track, and briefly usurped the Escort for what was third at that point. He reclaimed the position by passing Williamson’s Rover, then inherited second with Corker’s demise.
But the V12’s temperatures were running dangerously high. Having been enjoying himself so much that he perhaps pushed harder, and for longer, than he should have, Butterfield eventually admitted defeated and pulled off in a cloud of steam at the end of the penultimate lap.
Harvey was already a few seconds up the road and he completed the final lap to claim a third career victory – and first in his own car – by 6.2s. It was a reward for the hard work and perseverance of Tom and his father Age after plenty of tribulations over the past five years.
“That was a hard race,” breathed an emotional Harvey Jr. “But I’m over the moon. It’s been a long time coming. Honestly, the work that I’ve put into this car…”
Williamson was a class-winning second overall, but had to up his pace on the final lap to hold off a fine run by Knight whose efforts to make the event were rewarded with an overall podium.
Shreeve and Crudgington’s off-track work was also rewarded as the Essex man brought the venerable Triumph home in fourth overall. Grindrod made sure he collected crucial championship points in fifth, ahead of Bob Bullen’s similar car.
Completing the finishers in a fairly attritional race was former Fiesta man James Dunkley, who was having a first run out in his newly-acquired Escort Mk2.
Wet weather brought very different track conditions for Sunday’s race. But there was no change in fortunes for Corker, whose Datsun expired on the green flag laps. The North Yorkshireman later discovered loose internals in the car’s carburettor which might have been the cause.
When the race got under way, another cracking getaway propelled Williamson into the lead, ahead of Harvey, Knight and a reinvigorated Grindrod. The Viking Auto Garage team had discovered overnight that the hastily-fitted spare engine’s timing was amiss, and performed a fix that transformed its potency.
Grindrod used it to pass Knight through the Bomb Hole, then take Harvey for second at the Agostini hairpin on lap two of six. With everyone scrabbling for grip on the treacherous surface, Grindrod caught Williamson. He got a run exiting Murrays at the end of the second lap to take the lead.
The West Midlander didn’t look back from there, going on to record his fifth victory of the season – his first since mid-May – and provisionally clinch the title.
As Harvey’s Yokohama tyres struggled to provide grip, Knight quickly further demoted him. The former rally driver was revelling in the conditions and set about chasing down Williamson, who was slithering around on his semi-slicks.
The Mk2 Escort caught the sole Class B entry on the final lap, and the pair traded second place on multiple occasions. With the finish line in sight, they ran side by side through Coram and into Murrays, with Knight emerging in front, but Williamson used his V8 power to edge back ahead, snatching second on the line by just 0.13s.
Harvey survived a grassy excursion at Palmer to bring his ShellSport-liveried car home fourth, well clear of Bullen in fifth. Dunkley just held off Shreeve for sixth. Broadley managed to coax his XJ6 through the distance and, with Butterfield’s XJS a non-starter, took Class A honours.
Pre-’66 Touring Cars
Snetterton demonstrated again that the ever-popular Pre-’66 Touring Cars are unmatched in terms of the differing sizes and strengths of cars that race so competitively with each other.
Piers Grange’s huge Ford Falcon scooped the Saturday honours before Barry Sime’s diminutive Morris Mini Cooper S took the chequered flag first on Sunday – only for a post-race disqualification to hand Grange a repeat victory.
With his car on provisional pole position, Grange pitted when drizzly rain came during Saturday morning’s qualifying session. But others persevered and 2024 champion Ian Thompson found nearly a second and a half in the closing stages to grab pole position by 0.1s with his Lotus Cortina.
Grange ended up second fastest, 0.18s quicker than the second Cortina of Simon Gusterson, who would be joined on row two by Sime’s Mini.
The Ford Anglias of championship leader Jake Swann and 2023 title winner Billy Kenneally completed the top six. However, both Kenneally and seventh-fastest Gary Prebble (Hillman Imp) hit engine trouble and were unable to start the afternoon’s race.
Thompson led the race away but Grange quickly powered ahead after the first corner at Riches and had opened a lead of 1.6s by the end of the first lap.
Lacking grip, Thompson could not extract the same performance from his Cortina that he had done just a few hours earlier. Conversely, Gusterson had made some tweaks to his Alan Henderson Racing version and smelled blood.
On home ground, the East Anglian put the pressure on and squeezed past at Coram on lap two of seven. He set the race’s fastest lap next time around, impressively dipping into the 2m18s bracket with a 76.91mph marker, some half a second quicker than he’d managed in qualifying.
The gap to leader Grange ebbed and flowed according to their very different cars’ strengths, but the big V8-engined Falcon held on to take victory from the twin-cam Cortina by less than a second.
Thompson was another 7.4s adrift in third overall, second in Class F. Crucially, he didn’t lose any further ground in the championship as title rival Swann was also second in class. Swann initially jumped class rival Sime, but the Mini was quickly back in front. Two-time class champion Sime then pulled clear to finish a comfortable fourth overall, some 7s ahead of Swann.
Delighted to finish sixth overall was Pat Kenneally in the third Lotus Cortina. It was the first time he’d seen the chequered flag all season after a catalogue of woe.
In Prebble’s absence, Brendan Rooney took a comfortable Class E victory over Michael Loveland in the battle of the Imps. Class D honours went to Patrick Harris’s Morris Minor.
As with Pre-’83, Sunday’s sequel was held in very different conditions. The Pre-‘66s faced probably the worst of the wet weather and it made for a very different race, albeit one that ultimately produced the same winner.
From row four of the grid, an incredible start from Loveland almost propelled him into the lead, although Grange’s Detroit grunt kept him in front. Sime was also on the move and had pushed Loveland back to third by the time they reached Turn 2, the Wilson hairpin.
Sime’s Mini then started nipping at the Falcon’s heels and hit the front as they went through Coram at the end of the lap. Grange initially kept in touch but gradually lost more ground and was over 6s adrift at the chequered flag.
It looked like Sime had scored his first overall victory since a triumph at ‘home’ circuit Croft three years earlier. Sadly for the Scotsman, it wasn’t to be – the Avon rubber on his Mini was not listed on Motorsport UK’s List 1A ‘standard road tyres’, which has limited wet-weather options for 10-inch wheels, and so he was disqualified from the result.
So Grange took his fourth consecutive victory, wrapping up the Class A points in the process. Limited competition, however, has restricted his scoring potential for an overall title bid.
That is a two-horse race between Thompson and Swann, who ended up matching each other’s results again – this time each winning their class as well as claiming the fastest lap bonus.
Thompson found the limits of adhesion with a spin on the green-flag lap but was generally happier with his car than in the previous race; having lost a little ground at the start, he rounded Swann and then passed Loveland to take third on the opening lap. He then held station, which became second overall in the final results, to take a comfortable win in Class F.
In a reversal of fortunes, Thompson’s main class rival, Gusterson, endured a difficult race. He spun into the path of Rooney on the opening lap and had to pit to ensure a damaged wheel arch stopped fouling the tyre. He eventually trailed home outside the top 10, but still third in class.
So it was Pat Kenneally who finished second in Class F, and was classified fourth overall. Building on his Saturday result, Kenneally was particularly strong in the opening half of the race. He was beginning to catch Thompson and held the class’s fastest lap before pushing a little too hard and losing time with a couple of mistakes.
Between Thompson and Kenneally was Class E winner Prebble. The multiple Pre-’03 champion had missed the opener after his Imp broke its crankshaft in qualifying. But the GP Racing crew sourced a spare some 90 minutes away and worked until 1am on Saturday night to fit it. Prebble rewarded their efforts by climbing through from the back of the grid, passing Loveland for the class lead on lap two and going on to be classified third overall. He was catching Thompson for what became second in the closing stages, forcing the Cortina to up its pace.
Behind Kenneally, Loveland was fifth overall and second in class, beating the Anglias of Jake and Kevin Swann. Jake didn’t quite have the wet-weather pace he had hoped for but was still able to claim a potentially crucial Class C win after Sime’s removal.
Plagued by a misfire, Swann Sr had been an early retirement from Saturday’s race, but was delighted to complete the distance on Sunday, shadowing his son home.
Hampered by his brush with the gyrating Gusterson, Rooney could only manage third in Class E, seventh overall. Eighth went to the Austin A40 Farina of Brian Bedford, who had taken over from son-in-law Steve Evans, getting the better of Harris for Class D honours.
Classic Thunder & Historic Thunder
Bavarian power held sway in Norfolk, in both V8 and straight-six form, as regular 2026 pacesetters Dave Farrow and Joe Collier split the Classic Thunder honours – leaving Collier with one hand on the title.
Farrow set the qualifying pace aboard Rick Kerry’s EDF Motorsports-run BMW 1 Series V8, pulling an 88mph lap to jump ahead of Collier in the closing stages. Collier’s newly-wrapped E46 M3 was just 0.13s down, with leading Historic runner Colin Voyce only another tenth slower in his turbocharged Ford Escort Mk1.
Local man James Janicki (Nissan Skyline GTR R32) was fourth fastest, the only other runner within a second of Farrow’s benchmark.
Behind leading BOSS entry Piers Grange, the second Voycetune car of Kevin Denwood (E46 Compact) was fifth in Thunder. On only his second Thunder outing aboard Bitcoin Racing’s smart E46 M3, Chris Mackenzie showed the car’s potential by going sixth fastest, just ahead of Martin Reynolds’s Ford Escort Mk2 – a dual BOSS/Thunder entry.
Making a welcome return to the club, Malcolm Harding was next in his spaceframe SHP ‘Escort’ RSR. Elsewhere, there was trouble for both Simon Collier and Thruxton double winner Nick Vaughan. Collier’s Honda turbo-powered E46 M3 lost a belt, forcing him to miss the afternoon’s race while he returned to Derbyshire for a spare. Vaughan was sidelined by a snapped throttle cable.
While Farrow initially led the opener from Joe Collier, Essex racer Voyce was eyeing a first overall win of the season. He used his Mountune turbo power to blast past both BMWs before the end of the first three miles.
Voyce opened a 2s advantage in three laps before Farrow started to make his more modern machinery count, spectacularly driven on a knife-edge. He closed onto Voyce’s tail on lap four of eight, then dived inside at the Wilson hairpin next time around, setting fastest lap in the process.
The Lincolnshire driver then eased clear to take his first win since the Donington season-opener. Voyce had to settle for Historic honours, as well as winning Classic Thunder Class B, in second overall.
Collier was third, second in class to Voyce, hampered by a differential that broke on the warm-up lap. “It was like driving a wacker plate,” joked the groundworks specialist.
Janicki managed fourth in Thunder, losing out to top BOSS man Grange in the closing stages while stuck with using only fourth and fifth gears – a problem which kept him out of Sunday’s rematch. Mackenzie and Harding were early retirements, a suspected steering rack issue draining the RSR of power.
After a slow start, Denwood recovered to fifth in Thunder, just ahead of local man Reynolds.
Sunday’s race was held in wet conditions, which led to Farrow pulling some spectacular shapes in the edgy 1 Series. He demonstrated the car’s drifting potential with a wild high-speed moment through Riches, then took a grassy excursion at the Wilson hairpin on lap three of seven, damaging the car’s splitter.
Farrow had already lost the lead to Collier at the same corner a lap earlier. With no further threat from behind – Voyce suffered an early spin while powering out of the twisty infield section, sustaining right-front corner damage – Farrow had to concede defeat and settle for second overall, first in Class A.
With a working diff, Collier was untouchable as he took the chequered flag 8s clear for his fifth win of the season. The success puts the East Midlander out of reach in the points, provisionally earning him the championship crown.
Behind BOSS man Grange, Denwood drove a strong race to third in Thunder, second in Class B, almost a minute clear of Class C winner Reynolds. The Escort man also scooped the Historic honours, keeping up the pressure on Voyce in the championship chase.
Mackenzie recovered from an early spin to finish fifth in Thunder, second in Class A. Voyce also charged back through the field to sixth in Thunder. Crucially, he got the better of Melvyn Hooker – who had a strong weekend in his V8-powered Jaguar XJS – in the closing stages to win Class H1 and limit the damage to Reynolds in the Historic points.
Blue Oval Saloon Series
Piers Grange completed a very successful weekend, adding to his Pre-’66 double with a BOSS brace in the all-Ford series.
The Group 2-style Mk2 Escorts of Grange and Martin Reynolds – both with multi-valve Cosworth YB-based power units under the bonnet – were in a class of their own all weekend. But three-time champion Grange had the edge over 2021 title winner Reynolds and continued to chip into the Norfolk man’s Class B points lead.
Both cars were well in the mix among the Classic Thunder runners they shared a track with, Reynolds being registered to score points in both. Grange’s silver machine was fifth fastest overall in qualifying, nearly five seconds clear of eighth quickest Reynolds’ white-and-yellow car.
Cliff Pellin’s Class C Fiesta Mk7 was third in BOSS, ahead of Class D pacesetter Grant Shand. The rally car preparations expert was having his second outing in the championship – and only his third-ever race weekend – in his two-litre BDG-powered Escort, a fantastic addition to the championship.
Grange was untroubled in Saturday’s race, finishing fourth on the road to take BOSS honours by more than half a minute. Reynolds too was a comfortable second, a similar distance ahead of Class C winner Pellin.
Shand continued to clock up Tarmac mileage ahead of next month’s Tour de Corse Historique. The left-hooker Rallyxtreme Escort enjoyed some tussles with the Pre-’03 BMWs, well up the road from his Class D rivals.
Overall title contender Will Hunt took his Mk6 Fiesta – now slightly lighter and running a new suspension set-up – to second in class, ahead of the similar car of Todd Hawkins.
Sunday’s wet conditions made for a different challenge. But Grange was up to the task, the Cheshire man improving to third on the road as he took the BOSS victory by a whole minute. It was his fifth victory in the past six races, keeping him in contention for title.
But with his scoring generally limited by a lack of Class B entries, Grange could end up ruing dropped points earlier in the season – including an uncharacteristic mistake on home ground at Oulton Park and a four-link breakage last time out. In contrast, Reynolds has been more consistent, and he kept his points ticking over with another second place.
In the smaller-engined classes, conditions favoured the front-wheel-drive machinery. Hawkins in particular took the opportunity to shine, especially in the early laps when he charged past plenty of more powerful machinery from the concurrent categories.
Hawkins ran third in BOSS for most of the race but was pipped on the line by Pellin by just 0.2s. Each won their class, Hawkins 6.5s clear of second-placed Shand. Hunt, struggling for grip on very old wet tyres, was some way adrift in third but remains a strong contender for the overall title.
Pre-’03 Touring Cars
Local star Anton Martin brought his BMW 330ci E46 out for only its second Pre-’03 appearance of the season and took the honours on Saturday. But he fell by the wayside on Sunday, when John Hillyer scored his first win of the season.
Kam Tunio set the Pre-’03 pace in qualifying, his Class C Honda Civic Type R around a third of a second quicker than Class A pacesetter Martin could manage on his home circuit.
Three seconds further back, the other Class A BMWs of reigning champion Dave Cave (328i E36) and John Hillyer (E36 Touring) were separated by a tiny 0.011s.
Tunio has more wins than anyone this season, but hopes of adding to his tally on Saturday went south on the opening lap as engine gremlins forced him into retirement.
Martin took up the running and, on his home circuit, was largely untroubled en route to a maiden Pre-’03 win. Hillyer was 5s back in second. Having lost fourth gear, Cave focused on bringing his car home safely, third in Pre-’03, for crucial championship points.
With Tunio sidelined, newcomer Andrew Idoine (Civic) chased home BOSS-registered Will Hunt (Ford Fiesta Mk6) among the smaller-engined cars.
Wet weather threw an extra variable into the mix on Sunday, but it wasn’t the conditions that claimed Martin. The Suffolk man was forced out by a puncture on the opening lap.
That handed Hillyer the initiative, and the Surrey racer took his Juan Maria Traverso tribute car to its first win in 15 months. Cave was 4s back in second, happy to pick up another hatful of points.
Tunio was still plagued by a misfire and unable to reach the finish. With Hunt struggling on old rubber, Idoine therefore took the honours in Class C.
It means Cave is now out of reach in the championship standings, provisionally clinching his second straight title in only his second season of racing.
Pre-2013 Touring Cars
Lincolnshire racer Michael Greaves continues to plough a lone furrow in the club’s most recent category, paving the way for others to join in future.
The former grasstrack and rally man enjoyed his best weekend yet in his factory-built Renault Clio 197 Cup car. Greaves went particularly well in Sunday’s wet conditions, climbing to seventh overall among Classic Thunder machinery in the combined field, well ahead of the Pre-’93 and Pre-’03 runners.
Pre-’93 Touring Cars
With the majority of Pre-’93 regulars choosing to skip the trip to East Anglia, it was left to long-distance traveller Graham Myers to wave the flag for the category.
Plymouth veteran Myers, who first raced 53 years ago, made the round trip of well over 600 miles with his Jagermeister-liveried BMW. His two wins, albeit unopposed, were his first since winning the Pre-’93 title in 2019.
Full results are available via the TSL website.
All images courtesy of CTCRC official photographer Steve Jackman/Eat My Pixels
