HHC Motorsport enjoyed its most competitive weekend of the season in the Ginetta Challenge with its cars being pace-setters in the races at Snetterton on Sunday.

Ben Anderson qualified on pole position for the opening race in his debut for the team and his debut in a G40. The Autosport journalist, one of the country’s leading Formula Vee racers, took full advantage of the mixed weather conditions in a truncated qualifying session to take pole for race one and his second best time was enough to give him the G40 class pole position for the second race as well.

He was joined on the front row for the opening race by Rick Parfitt and Ben led off the line as Rick slipped back with wheelspin off the grid. Ben lost his lead to Stuart Pearson’s older G20 on the opening lap and then Sean Huyton’s G40 moved into the lead at the end of the opening lap. As Ben tried to follow him, he spun and fell to 11th but turned in one of the race’s best recovery drives as he claimed third place in his first G40 race.

Rick, having qualified out of position, was overhauled by some of the quicker cars that had been caught out by the conditions in qualifying and he fell into the bottom end of the top 10 but eventually retired from race one, while Richard Sykes was in trouble on the opening lap with a clutch failure. He did one slow lap into retirement, but would be the star of race two....

Starting from 13th on the grid, Richard was leading by the end of lap two, despite having a train of cars queued up behind him. Sadly, a late race safety car period deprived him off any advantage and the pack was on his tail starting the one remaining racing lap.

Starting from 13th on the grid, Richard was leading by the end of lap two, despite having a train of cars queued up behind him. Sadly, a late race safety car period deprived him of any advantage and the pack was on his tail starting the one remaining racing lap. Richard fended off the opposition until the last corner but the dreaded slipping clutch returned at the exit of Russell, and the pack was on him, the frenzied last corner saw inevitable slight contact. As a result, Richard spun and battled home 14th, frustrated that a certain win had gone begging due to a mechanical issue.

Ben was involved in the battles early in the race and suffered damage causing his exhaust to come out of its clamp and start to touch a tyre which in turn made Ben feel that something was lose at the front. He made a pit stop to check over the car but was able to fight back up into 18th place, while Rick enjoyed his best race to date by running with the leading group race-long and finishing a fine eighth on one of the most challenging circuits on the Ginetta Challenge calendar.

HHC Motorsport’s Charlie Kemp said: “We’ve shown again that our cars and drivers have got the pace to be competitive, but it’s frustrating that we came away without a win. Ben did a tremendous job in his first races in a G40 with us and he proved that he’s as good as anyone out there. Rick is making progress rapidly and it won’t be long before he is celebrating his first podium finish, and Richard should have won that last race. He was driving well, he was confident and it was a clutch failure and not a driving error that caused the spin. When he does get his first win, it will all the sweeter now.”

Charlie was in action as well at the weekend racing in the HSCC’s Martini Trophy in Chris Fox’s Lola T210. Despite losing much of qualifying with a puncture, Charlie took second in class in race one and a class win in the second race after finishing a superb fourth overall.