Reports > Howard's Day Castle Combe April 21 2025
Class wins for Wayne Poole & Wayne Rushworth
A new season and a new look for Wayne Poole Racing. At Castle Combe for the Howard's Day season opener the team had entered just a couple of Formula Fords - a Class A Van Diemen RF01 for Steve Bracegirdle and a Class C RF89 for Wayne Poole. They were joined by a returning Wayne Rushworth with his MG ZR in the Saloon Car championship races, Justin Holloway in his Renault Clio and Ben Heywood in the team's Mini Cooper for the Hot Hatch races.
In the first Formula Ford race Wayne made a great start to finish Lap 1 in eighth place ahead of both Steve and the other Class C runners. In the next few laps first Steve and then Bob Hawkins (Class C Van Diemen RF89) got past but were unable to pull away. Hawkins retired on Lap 8 leaving Steve to finish eighth with Wayne a second adrift but taking the Class C win. In Race 2 Wayne made another good start to lead Steve and another Class C challenger Dane Catanzaro. Steve got past on Lap 4 but the three stayed tied together until a puff of smoke from Catanzaro's engine coming into Camp on the penultimate lap signalled an imminent problem and he dropped back. So Steve was eighth again and Wayne ninth with the Class win and fastest Class lap.
The first Saloon Car Championship race was red flagged after 7 laps and the resulting re-start was run over 5 laps with Wayne Rushworth moving up to finish ninth and take the Class C win and fastest lap. In Race 2 the Swindon Pest Control man maintained his form to take another Class win and fastest lap.
In the first Hot Hatch race Justin qualified a strong fourth and briefly fought for the lead in the opening laps before dropping back to finish fourth and second in Class A. Ben made an average start but moved up a few places to finish 15th and second in Class E. Race 2 was largely a repeat of the first race with Justin again finishing fourth and third in Class A with Ben 13th and second in Class E.
Justin and Wayne R entered the 40min Dave Allan Trophy race and finished sixth.
All images kindly supplied by Phil Johnson except where noted.
