Fareham’s James Wren scorched through the field to take his third points finish of the 2000 season in the latest round of the Mobile Windscreens Formula Ford 1600 Championship at Castle Combe on Saturday.

Wren has made stunning progress in his first full season of circuit racing, and qualified 16th on the 34-car grid despite practice being disrupted by a big accident at Camp.

"It must have happened just behind me because I saw the red flags at the first chicane," said James. "It was a bit gutting because I was on a really good lap when they flagged the session!"

James has made a habit of racing much better than he qualifies in his Fareham Van Hire-backed Van Diemen, so his career-best 16th on the grid boded well. Normally you can rely on at least three of the frontrunners tangling on the opening lap at Combe, but with the whole field behaving themselves Wren would have to fight his way through the field rather than rely on carnage ahead this time.

Running 15th on the first lap, within five tours he had clawed his way through to 12th, on the tail of a tense battle between Wayne Poole, Alan Slater and Hugh Elliott, all drivers who were leaving Wren standing not so long ago.

This time however, James was the man on the move and eager to make further progress up the order. The quartet were running absolutely nose-to-tail, but although Wren was visibly faster than his sparring partners, he was beginning to discover that the frontrunners are significantly less obliging than the backmarkers with whom he used to battle.

"They really don’t like being passed!" he said afterwards. "That was some seriously tough racing, Hugh Elliott had me on the grass twice on the run down to Quarry. They certainly don’t give anything away…"

Inevitably, the fight was resolved in a last-lap shoot-out. On the penultimate circuit he slipped past Slater as Gary Marsh tagged on behind to create a five-car squabble. Then, James got a fantastic run on Elliott and Poole as they exited Camp corner to begin the final lap…

"We were virtually three-abreast over Avon Rise," he explained. "Then Wayne got really sideways and braked early. Hugh went left, I went right, everyone behind locked-up, I slipped through and Hugh spun off! So I was left with just Wayne ahead of me and I thought: ‘okay, one car to go, half a lap left, no problem!’"

Sure enough, Wren sliced past Poole to take ninth place and his third points finish of the year. It was a close run thing however, as Poole, Slater and Marsh all sat in the Dalmeny Racing driver’s slipstream out of the final corner, a mere 0.7s covering all four cars at the flag.

"That was just a fantastic race, probably my best yet," James said afterwards. "My lap times are quicker than ever before and I probably had the pace to go after Jon Adlam for eighth position if the race had been a bit longer.

"I’m really proving to myself that I can do it now. There were a few occasions when I was beginning to wonder if I really had it in me, but now we’re getting quicker with every race and really making progress."

The penultimate meeting of the championship takes place at Castle Combe on August 28, with the double-header series finale scheduled for September 23-24. Given his current rate of progress, it would come as no surprise if Wren made it into the top six before the end of the year.

Leading Results from Castle Combe