The saloon car race on the Sunday morning was fast, furious and a good race by anyone's standards.

To say it rained would be to understate the conditions. Suddenly the weather changed from tolerable rain to very wet indeed as a squall blew in rendering umbrellas almost unusable. This coincided with the start of the St. Mary's Trophy race and the cars appeared from out of a mountain of spray with Grant Williams, presumably on brand new tyres, out in front having ploughed through from the third row of the grid.

His driving was absolutely spectacular with long sideways power slides which quickly put him well ahead of the rest of the field. After four or so laps he lost it at Madgwick, recovered but lost it again to fall back down the order from where he found it impossible to get back into the action for the rest of the race. It was an impressive drive though and for me it was a high spot of the weekend.

Once the Jag had departed Gerry Marshall and John Rhodes got locked into battle for first place, Rhodes ahead until the penultimate lap when Gerry slithered past in drying conditions to win by a very slim margin of less than a second.

Next up were the two mini Coopers of Norman Grimshaw and Lionel Dodkins who had fought back after the heavy metal had been able to take advantage of their bigger tyres and better traction to get by them at the start.

Peter Mockler's nimble Renault Dauphine was a site for sore oreilles showing Bill Shepherd's magnificent all grunt and gravitas high inertia Galaxie how to go round corners on tippy toes. In the wet the Galaxie gave a new meaning to tuck 'n roll. American Graffiti recycled.

Rob Wilson's light touch brought the John Coombes' Jaguar safely home in sixth place and the very pretty Ford Falcon which looked like it might have been happier cruising El Camino Real, driven by David Clarke, made it to the line in one piece a little further back.

Stirring stuff, with all the drivers trying very hard indeed to keep it on the island. Well worth getting soaked to the skin for. Memories are made of this kind of race.