It has taken a little time to sort out, but we now have confirmation of the Classic Formula 3 calendar for 2015. These vary a little bit from those announced earlier, and the website will be brought up to date in the next day or two.
We had 7 meetings in 2014 and there was every intention of having no more than that, probably one less in 2015. However, the calendar shows 8, 6 of which are double headers and 2 single race meetings. The additions are a race on the 30th May at Donington Park, which is a 1 day meeting. CF3 has not done Donington Park for some years, our last race being a cold and wet day in March 2012! There seems to be, however, a general enthusiasm for a single CF3 only race and so we have included it in the calendar. This then got us back to 7 meetings and the one that we had favoured dropping was the September Brands Indy Circuit meeting.
This meeting in 2015 will support 4 races for Jonathan Palmer’s MSV Formula 4 Series and as it was a standalone race for CF3, not with URS FF2000, we decided to include this prestigious meeting and also the single race at the Silverstone Finals meeting, which everyone seems to enjoy. We agreed with the HSCC an 8 meeting (14 race) Championship with what we feel is a pretty good calendar.
The full calendar is as follows:
All the races will be 20 minutes, and if you still want to do more, there is the opportunity of the Old Timer Grand Prix race at Nurburgring on the weekend of the 9th & 10th August, details of which are on the FORUM.
As the FORUM has indicated, the close season has seen a fair amount of activity from new participants, who will join us in 2015. Andy Smith has acquired a March 783, Gaius Ghinn an RT3 from France. Timothy Lyons, another RT3 VW, also from France. Mike Simpson, former owner of David Shaw’s ex Piquet RT1, has acquired John Bradshaw’s Argo and Andy and Ian Jones have finished the re-build of their Dallara and hopefully will be out in that in all races. Former CF3 Champion Keith White has had his ex-Elio Angelis Ralt RT1 completely rebuilt, following his horrific shunt at Brands in 2013 and will be joining the grid at several meetings as well. The beautifully rebuilt car will be on display on the HSCC stand at Race Retro and we are hoping to be able to display another car on the Motorsport Magazine stand, as we did last year.
Several people have acquired cars that are in the process of being rebuilt, but will probably not be seen until 2016 and others such as Mike Waite with a Chevron B43, will hopefully make a few appearances during 2015. We should have 18-20 regular Formula 3 runners, which when coupled with the URS FF2000 cars, will mean some healthy grids at most meetings.
If Gareth can make it to Race Retro, which will be either Saturday or Sunday, on the HSCC stand at 12:30 pm, we will be presenting Gareth Walters with his 1600 cc class trophy from 2014, which unfortunately got overlooked at the HSCC prize giving awards. Hopefully there will be a big turnout of CF3 competitors, so after the presentation we will retire to the bar for some lunchtime conviviality and chatter! Richard, Colin and I very much look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.
Amazingly, the start of the season at Thruxton is only 10 weeks away, so we trust you are getting your “pride and joy’s” ready for the Easter weekend or even a bit of pre-season testing!
Until we see you at Race Retro on the 20th February 2015, best wishes.
Regards
Hugh Price
CF3 Chairman
CLASSIC F3