Fareham’s James Wren scythed his way from a lowly grid position to a points finish in round two of the Castle Combe Formula Ford Championship on Easter Monday, only his second race back following an enforced two-year absence.

Wren last competed regularly in 2000, when a season of spectacular progress saw him blossom into a regular top ten contender in the most fearsome regional FFord series in the UK. He had high hopes for 2001, but a violent accident in the opening race left James facing an expensive and time-consuming car rebuild, a task he could ill afford while in the final months of a degree at Portsmouth University. This enforced hiatus finally ended at the start of the 2003 season, but the stakes had risen in his absence, with an influx of larger, more professional teams and the introduction of state-of-the-art machinery. While this increased competitiveness further strengthens the Castle Combe championship’s position as England’s premier FFord series, it also threatens to make a rarity of the likes of James Wren and Dalmeny Racing: small family-based teams operating ten-year-old cars on a shoestring budget.

Qualifying threatened to continue the disappointing form that had made Wren’s first race back a low-key affair. Still somewhat rusty and struggling for confidence under braking after so long away, James was only 21st quickest in practice and resigned to spending the race gaining valuable mileage in the midfield.

Yet it was clear in the early stages that the day might deliver rather more than Wren had anticipated. A no-nonsense approach to the fraught opening laps took him up to 15th by lap three, despite an assault from rival Barry Baxter:

“He went into the back of our car and lost his nose cone, and then after the race was very aggressive at me and saying I’d rammed him! If I’d rammed the front of his car with my rear wheel then I’d have been doing very well…” said James.

After summarily dispatching a few more rivals, Wren found himself on the tail of a lower top ten battle between Nick Lay, Matthew Darcy and Shaun Macklin. The latter pair kindly removed themselves with a collision at Tower, allowing James to leap up to ninth place, in line for a championship point and right on the tail of eighth-placed Lay with a lap to go. Ironically this was the car that, in the hands of Lay’s brother Richard, had put Wren into the barrier so devastatingly two years earlier. James had no time to consider this as he antagonised the Reynard throughout the final lap, drawing alongside as they crossed the finish line and missing out on a career-best eighth position by just 0.136s.

“With another lap I would’ve passed him, but he was actually very good and made his car very wide,” said Wren. “You’d do well to pass someone between Camp and the finish line, but I thought it was worth a try, there’s no point giving up before you cross the line.”

“I never thought we’d qualify quite as badly as we did, but I definitely didn’t expect to be walking away with a point! To come from 21st to ninth equals our best ever result from possibly our worst ever starting position, so it’s all smiles here! Now I need to start qualifying better so I don’t get dragged down with people I shouldn’t be racing against, because if you can start with the quick guys you get sucked along with their battles. The car is just perfect, the chassis balance is absolutely fantastic and the engine was really on song. My qualifying problems are psychological and it’s up to me to sort them out, but there’s no reason why we can’t come to the next event on May 5th, qualify better and then go even faster in the race!”