Home

The Worthing HO Racing website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (except where otherwise noted) 2012-24

Follow us at Goring’s slot car racing club

Formula 1 - 6 March 2013

Race Report


Our 2013 Formula One season kicked off ten days before Bernie Ecclestone's version. The temperature in Goring was a little cooler than Melbourne, but the atmosphere was red hot.


We welcomed five new championship contenders to the Barn - Rob, Caz, Colleen, Liam and Stephen. Their arrival gives Andy Parker some serious competition in the Rookie of the Year championship.


The track promised something for all the chassis - a long straight for the Mega-Gs and some tighter sections that the Tycos could take almost flat out. Duncan, Dave and Simon had ditched their Tycos for Mega-Gs this year, leaving Tycos for the two Andys, Ollie and the club car runners.


The Micro Scalextric cars looked full tilt round most of the track, apart from turn 6. As Hannah said more than once "How can that happen?" as her car fell off at 0mph. Andrew and Hannah have been joined by Mike McCann in the Micro camp this season.


Rob was the only racer to use a Super-G - enjoying the speed, but struggling on the corners.


After twenty eight fast and furious heats, with mostly Mega-Gs on the grid, we had a Tyco on pole position for the first time since January 2011.


Finals


We also had a G final for the first time in a while, which saw newcomer Caz take a comfortable win over WHO regulars Ollie and Daniel.


The F final was one racer short after Ned felt unwell and headed home with his grand dad. That left Andy Parker with Stephens Lewis and McCann slugging it out. They finished in that order, with Stephen Lewis running Andy close.


Up in the E final, Mike McCann was racing three of our new racers - Rob, Liam and Colleen. Rob has qualified top of the bunch, but Mike monstered the race with his upgraded Micro, scoring the top final score so far. Behind, Liam finished top of the rookies, followed by Rob and Colleen - all three separated by less than a lap.


The D final saw a big winning score - Duncan beating 23 laps in blue lane with his new Mega-G. If only he'd done that in the heats, the A final would have been in reach. Jonah came in next, followed by Hannah and Tyler - Hannah taking third place in the Classic Cup for Tyco and Micro Scalextric cars.


It was all Mega-Gs in the C final and we witnessed a momentous battle between Darren and Simon for the win. Simon just snatched it, with Darren a close second, Gareth third and Josh fourth.


Andrew was the top Micro Scalextric car of the night. Although he had the pace to qualify above Mike Dadson and John, he had a disappointing start to the B final and could not make up the ground on the others. Dave had an incident-free race and just pipped Mike, much to Mike's disappointment. John came in third.


That just left the A final. Having had some lap timing issues during the evening, four volunteers manually counted to double-check the laps for the 'top' final.


It was a cracking final with the track punishing any over-excitement or misjudgements. All of the drivers - Andy, Robin, Clive and Callum - had tricky parts of the race when they thought they were out of contention, but then came back again as others suffered.


At the end of the two minutes, Clive took the win ahead of Robin and Andy - all on the same lap. Callum came in not far behind, a massive performance for a junior racer.


Congratulations to Clive and to Callum for their medal wins. It looks like it will be an exciting F1 season this year. And some racers may well be dropping this month's score...


Andy P