auto italia 57competitive, so I thought I'd give hillclimbing a go. I
turned up at Harewood hillclimb, screwed on a towing
eye and came fourth, surprising myself in the process. I
ended up doing eight rounds of the PFHC that year and
I went on to do 10 seasons in the 355 – that car reliably
racked up 50,000 miles just getting to and from events.
“Before I stopped doing the hillclimbing, I realised
that what I really wanted to do was circuit racing, for
the added excitement of being wheel to wheel with my
rivals. In 2008 I bought a red 328 GTB racer from a
fellow club member and over the next seven years I
had a lot of success with it. My first win in that car was
at Zandvoort, which was a particularly poignant
moment for me as my original inspiration and hero was
James Hunt, and it was at this Dutch circuit that he
had his first win. As a five-year old, I met Hunt at CroftTime to explode another myth: that all Ferraris are
mollycoddled rather than driven in anger. Chris's 328
was made in 1986, and by 1989 it was already being
campaigned in the FOC's circuit racing championship.
Most years since then the 328 has been raced, and
while it was often trailered to circuits around the UK
(and even Europe), it was frequently driven instead,
although Chris now trailers it everywhere because the
car has been set up specifically for track use.
Chris adds: “I bought my first Ferrari in 2001. It was a
355 which I still own, and while I drove it sparingly in
the first year, I then took part in a track day and I
realised just what the car could do. I was hooked, and
then I got talking to Richard Allen, who ran the club's
Pirelli Ferrari Hillclimb Championship (PFHC). He
explained how easy it was to take part and beIN ASSOCIATION with