You are invited to the Classic 2CV Racing Club Annual Awards Evening, to be held on the 12th November 2011 at the Bridge Hotel in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, from 6:30pm.  Presentation of all awards, including top 3 trophies for each race, plus many more!  Why not come along and see what you win!?

Make sure you pay for your ticket before the event!

Important: deadline for RSVP is 23rd September - get your entries in soon!

Click here for more information.

The 2011 24 hour race is all over, with RB Racing 1 (Alec Graham, Meyrick Cox, Nick Paton) taking the top honours after 721 laps of the newly revised Snetterton circuit! 2nd place went to Gadget Racing 1(Wayne Cowling, Simon Clarke, Ainslie Bousfield, Gary Adnitt) - 7 laps down on the winner, and 3rd was the Tete Rouge team (Sammie Fritchley, Simon Turner, Anthony Robinson, David O'Keefe) - 13 laps down on the winner.

The early part of the race was led by Team Stinky (Neil Thompson, Neil Savage, Christine Thompson, Chris Yates), with RB Racing 1 snapping at their heels, and Tete Rouge keeping them honest in 3rd. Team Stinky set the pace early on, putting in the fastest lap of the race on lap 38, with a 1:51.67. Problems started to emerge for the front runners around the half-distance mark, as Tete Rouge broke their cooling fan, which resulted in an engine change. Not too long after, Team Stinky lost time in the pits due to an early brake pad change. Stinky also succumbed to fan failure and an overheated engine later on Sunday morning, which handed RB Racing 1 a comfortable 5-6 lap lead, which they stretched out to 7 laps by the finish.

The Gadget car spent some time in the pits early doors while the team looked for a fuel leak. After that however, they made steady progress up the field as Stinky and Tete Rouge were struggling.

There were problems also for Crisis Racing, who suffered problems with a wheel bearing, and also some major accident damage - their offside sill ripped open in a collision with the front of the spinning Lucky Jon car. Not so Lucky for Jon, as his car was pretty much retired on the spot with a very twisted front end. Crisis were able to complete the race and finished 8th.

Also to change engines were Hollis Motorsport, #42 Old Time (who were quite settled in 4th place), Gadget 2 and JB doors. The Basingstoke College entry spent most of the race in the pits, and eventually using an engine assembled from the bits of 4 others, finished the race 32nd and last, barely completing a third of the laps of the winner.

But by far the worst luck went to Team Keller, who managed to change engines 6 times during the event, and then to cap it all off they became the team to perform the almost mandatory roll-over. Subsequently running with no front or rear window (and it gets cold during the night at Snetterton!) they managed to keep plugging away until the end, and finished 29th, earning themselves the Ian Gammon-Hardaway trophy for "Spirit of the Meeting". A prize of which they are justifiably proud.

Joining the UK spec cars this year were 4 entries from the European series. Of these, the #17 BioDeuche.be (eXperimental class) car fared the worst. It was a quick car when it was on track, but was dogged by problems and spent much of the race visiting the pits. Ahead of them, the CGS Racing Team car (Prototype class) and the 2PK Dreams (Amelioree class) car had a good battle to the end, with 2PK getting the nod by only 3 laps. Both teams had a rocky start, but recovered well. European victors were Team Pegase, driving the #15 car in the Hybride class (BMW engined) - they started with a 50 lap handicap, and managed to finish 16th, 70 laps behind the leaders.

Here's the final classification:

And here's the teams' progress chart (click on the chart for more!):

A big thank you to all those who took place in this year's race, and all the marshals and officials who made it happen. Also thanks to our commentators and media team for covering the race live - we hope to provide some video highlights via this website as soon as practical.

Meanwhile, there are pictures here, here and here.

And here's some videos from the event:

Hugh McCurrich's onboard (with vBox graphics)	JB doors losing the front right wing against the #59 SVG car (thanks to Alistair Pearson)
Team Stinky's dawn stint - Chris Yates	Iceni's Malcolm Edeson's race start and first 7 minutes
Neil Chilleystone's fastest lap in qualifying	Malcolm Edeson's slide during free practice
Team Stinky's morning stint - Neil Savage	Team Stinky's 2nd stint - Christine Thompson
Speeded up engine swap for #90 JB doors - Tete Rouge. Suitably irreverent music!	Team Iceni's crash from 7th, plus finish
Some more footage from Crisis Racing	CGS Racing Team's story, part 1
CGS Racing Team's story, part 2	CGS Racing Team's story, part 3

With the 24 hour race at Snetterton looming (27/28th August), it's time to reveal which teams will be in which garage. There are now 32 entrants (including 4 from the European series in garages 11/12), and there are only 26 garages at Snetterton circuit, so some will have 3 or possibly 4 cars squeezing into them!

Over 120 Drivers will be racing. The youngest is just 16 and a half while the oldest is 74. Average age is 43. Around a dozen drivers have International race experience and another dozen are novices. There are a number of previous race winners in different cars and it is expected to be very close at the top in qualifying and throughout the race.

Notes on the Euro classes in garages 11 / 12:

Cat A for Améliorée (car 147): Use a different shell to UK but they have an original 2CV engine with little changes and should not be much faster than the UK Classic class.

Cat H for Hybrid (car 22 – Team Pegase): These have a BMW 2 cylinder bike engine and some other modifications. Expected to be around 10 seconds a lap quicker than the UK Classic class. Drivers from Team Pegase were in the 2010 race in a UK car and finished 6th.

Cat P for Proto (car 170 - http://www.cgsracingteam.be/):  These can go to 652cc (VISA engines) and change the carburetion to double Webers or injection. Car 170 has injection. Expected to be slower than the Hybrid class.

Cat X for eXperimental (car 166 - http://www.biodeuche.be): Used for demonstrating new technologies. At the 24 Hour Race in Spa last year there were 2 cars from a university - one with a 100% electrical 2cv and another with a KERS system, like in F1. There was also a Burton with a 2cv chassis, and the 166 car which ran on 100% biofuel.  We await to see how experimental the car will be in the UK.

More info in the August newsletter, available by clicking here.

Croft circuit, located just outside Darlington in County Durham, has some pretty stringent noise restrictions. As such, the 2CVs were required to have extra exhaust silencer boxes fitted for rounds 7, 8 and 9 of the ECAS 2CVPARTS.COM championship. Round 9 was to be a 2 hour mini-enduro race held outside the normal race day hours, from 6:15pm until 8:15pm, so being quiet and behaving was the order of the day. A difficult challenge!

Time obviously works differently at Croft, as round 9 - the 2 hour enduro - was held on the Saturday evening, before rounds 7 and 8 were held on the Sunday. Sign-on was early on Saturday morning, and with some of the drivers still suffering from nose bleeds from being so far up North (or trying to work out the timetable!), qualifying began for the 2 hour enduro.

Riding high on the back of his performance at Anglesey, Neil Thompson propelled 'Stinky' into pole position for the enduro, with the number 5 car ("Armageddon") of Alec Graham and Matt Hollis coming in 2nd, two tenths of a second adrift. Lien Davis and Peter Rundle, sharing Lien's #93 car claimed third on the grid, just another 71 thousandths behind.

Early in the afternoon, qualifying for the first sprint race (round 7) got under way. Alec Graham took top honours, tailed by Sammie Fritchley (+0.62) and Steve Panas (+0.84). With just a 5 minute interval before qualifying for round 8, there wasn't much time to tinker - just to change drivers in some cases. Alec Graham once again took the top spot for round 8, this time with Nick Paton taking second (+0.02) and Simon Clarke snatching third (+0.40).

Back then to the enduro on Saturday evening, and with Thompson leading the field away from pole, a few groups of cars began to form. Thompson dropped a couple of places, biding his time. This may have been a costly mistake however, as when Paton spun his car at Clervaux corner, Neil had nowhere to go but into the side of it (Video clip)! Paton's car was an instant retirement (blown tyre), which brought out the safety car. Neil managed to get his car back to the pits, but it wasn't a pretty sight - the broken fan was jammed on to the engine, requiring an engine change, costing the team over 20 minutes.

Also having a rough time were Team Gadget - the #2 car of Cowling/Clarke, the #93 car of Davies/Rundle and the #80 car of Bousfield/Panas were regular pit callers, and eventually finished 31, 31 and 13 laps respectively behind the leaders. The final insult being the #80 car disqualified (hotly disputed) for a rule infringement after a misunderstanding.

After 2 hours, the clear winners were Alec Graham and Matt Hollis, taking the win by over 29 seconds. Second place went to Simon Turner, Sammie Fritchley and David O'Keefe, with the #21 Sutcliffe car coming home in 3rd, another 30 seconds back.

Sunday's racing started later, with round 7 - the first of the sprint races. Sammie Fritchley took the lead from pole-sitter Alec Graham early doors, and could not be wrested from the lead. After 10 laps, Sammie took the win by just 8 tenths of a second, with Graham a full 18 seconds clear of 3rd placed Philip Myatt. Alec's consolation was a fastest lap of 2:04.644. No consolation for Wayne Cowling, whose car was again suffering gremlins, finishing 2 laps down.

Round 8 was the last race of the day, and in the evening sun it was 4 drivers battling for the win - Alec Graham (from pole), Simon Clarke (from 3rd), Neil Thompson (from 4th), and Ainslie Bousfield (from 5th). Nick Paton should have started second on the grid, but due to a change of car (his original heavily damaged by the accident in the 2 hour enduro) he was obliged to start from the back of the grid, promoting Thompson and Bousfield by a place each.

With his car misfiring along the back straight, Thompson was very surprised to take the lead of the race on the first lap, but it wasn't long before Clarke asserted himself to lead the field. The order remained Clarke-Thompson-Graham-Bousfield for the next 5 laps, as the group of 4 eased away from the chasing pack.

On lap 6 Graham mounted a charge to the front, and by lap 8 he was leading Clarke, then Thompson, and Bousfield. Although it was close, Graham never lost the lead from then and took the victory by 0.9 of a second, much to his delight! Thompson made a last lap lunge at the hairpin to take 2nd away from Clarke (by 0.7 of a second), and Bousfield tried his hardest - nearly losing it at the complex - before coming 4th, 1.6 seconds down on Clarke.

A fabulous weekend of racing then at Croft circuit, with some teams feeling a little battle weary. Next race is the big one - the 24 hour race at Snetterton.

Full results from Croft available, click here to download