THE antics of a local family entertained the rain-soaked crowd at the opening meeting of Castle Combe’s 2012 season on Monday.

The trio of father Bob and sons Adam and Richard Higgins found themselves dicing for much of the Startline Formula Ford 1600 championship race, each of them taking a turn at being ahead.

Perennially underfinanced, the Chippenham- based family’s fortunes were revived earlier this year with a lottery win, allowing Bob, a veteran quadruple champion, to make another return with a new Van Diemen, which he finally brought home in sixth place.

It was Richard who really impressed, taking a fine class B win and seventh overall in his Van Diemen RF90. Brother Adam, the class B champion in 2011, was running fourth until the final lap when he went off at Tower.

Rain was the determining factor in the day’s opening Vadabar Sports & GT championship race. Pole man Gary Prebble in his Mitsubishi Evo, the only four-wheel drive car in the race, rocketed away from the start to build an immediate lead.

Whilst the Evo may have had a traction advantage, the pure sports racing cars were not to be discounted, particularly the turbocharged Radical SR3 of reigning champion, Simon Tilling.

After his traditionally modest start, Tilling gradually clawed back his deficit, closing right up to Prebble with one lap to go.

But as he exited Camp, the Radical snapped round, allowing Prebble to go on to a clear win. Tilling was able to recover, retaining second, with Mustill some 14 seconds behind in third place.

The second Prebble race win of the day went to Gary’s brother Adam who took outright victory in the National Mobile Windscreens Saloon Car championship race.

Chippenham’s Will Di Claudio made a great start from third on the grid but Prebble had already built a lead which he found easy to maintain.

Calne’s Tony Hutchings, another former champion, moved his Audi TT through from sixth on the grid to pinch third from Di Claudio, the latter taking the class B win after a year off.