Almost Terry.

Sideways Group 5 cars were out again this week, with the nine-driver grid including the Tomster in a class-legal Schnitzer BMW M1 to replace his rule-bending Slot.it Sauber-Merc, and Terry, fresh from celebrating his 70th birthday, who’d been loaned Team Bryant’s rapid Ford Mustang for the evening.

Julian, Molesey’s Group 5 master, immediately took the lead ahead of Josh and looked set for yet another win. In the midfield, the Tomster, who’d spent Monday evening fine-tuning his BMW and bedding in new tyres, was quickly on the pace and able to mix it with Neil and Graham, the trio enjoying some of the closest racing of the evening.

At half-distance Julian was in front, Josh and Terry were squabbling over second, David was fourth, then Neil, Ed, Tom, Graham and Alex. It wasn’t to stay that way.

Heat 4 changed everything, a big crash seeing Julian’s car hit the floor, damaging it sufficiently for him to lose five laps and drop to third overall. The carnage and subsequent track call saw Josh lose time too, and suddenly Terry was in the lead, half a lap up on Josh and a lap ahead of Julian. Could it last?

Julian clawed back most of his deficit in Heat 5 to move up to second, leaving Terry with a tiny lead of 0.09 of a lap going into the final heat, roughly seven tenths of a second. It seemed inevitable that Julian would quickly catch Terry, but he started uncharacteristically slowly, Terry’s driving was impressively fast and smooth, and for several laps it looked as if Terry might just cause a big upset and hold on for an unexpected victory. It wasn’t to be. The pressure proved too much, Terry crashed twice, and his rare opportunity for a memorable win was gone, Julian once again king. It had almost been Terry’s night. Almost, but not quite.