A big, partly four-lane track greeted the thirty racers who came along to our November
digital Wednesday.
This was by far the biggest turn-out for a digital evening at the Barn, boosted by
a visiting contingent from East Worthing Scalextric Club, including Matt, Darren,
Owen and Alfie making their WHO debuts. It was great to welcome back Harrison and
Tony who first raced with us at the Scalextric World Championship event in 2014.
They'd brought George and Andy with them for their first taste of slot car club racing.
Simon's track design was rather revolutionary for a WHO/digital track. The three
and four-lane sections stretched for nearly half the lap and allowed a long pit entry
and even longer pit exit. That successfully isolated the pitting cars with those
racing hard and there were far fewer incidents and issues with pitting. It looked
great too.
Nascar club car team race. The new digital racers had a nice long practice race
under expert tuition from Mike D and then we were ready to go racing. Teams were
selected randomly, with junior racers as captains and each receiving two seeded racers
from a pool of our more successful regular racers. Six teams and thirty racers meant
five team members for each.
We'd run four fifteen minute races, gradually introducing the RCS64 simulations and
swapping the Nascar club cars each time. That gave us a one hour race in total.
Segment One - 15 minutes. The first fifteen minutes were a chance to race hard without
worrying about fuel consumption or tyre-wear. A driver change - in the pits - was
required every three minutes, but that was the only interruption. Ryan's team "Mr
Oad" was the hottest out of the blocks, our newly-crowned AFX champion ably assisted
by Duncan, Alex S, Matthew and Owen. They hit 57 laps, a whopping score, but just
one ahead of "The Decelerators" - Jonathon, Simon, Neil, Darren and Graham looking
a very strong team on paper and on the track. Oliver's Overdrivers were three laps
back on 53, Red Tops with 51, All is Dust 49 and Accelerators 47. That's the whole
field covered by ten laps.
Segment Two - 30 minutes. Fuel consumption was switched on for the second fifteen
minutes. Fuel is burned off as you race, the rate depending on how heavy you are
on the throttle. When you're out of fuel, your car ceases to count laps. In a fifteen
minute race it is possible to 'save' a fuel stop if you drive smoothly and run a
risk with a near-empty tank. Would anyone try that, or would teams play it safe?
Certainly the team captains were keeping a close eye on the RCS64 screens and strategies
looked pretty slick. Mr Oad looked the slickest and the bravest, stopping five times
to everyone else's eight. Oliver's Overdrivers chose the opposite strategy, running
hard and pitting often - they stopped twelve times. Which strategy would work best?
The scores at the end of the segment put Oliver's Overdrivers and The Decelerators
top on 52 laps, Mr Oad next on 51 and Red Tops with 50. All is Dust finished with
47 laps and Acceleration struggled a little and only managed 42. At the half way
stage, that left Mr Oad and The Decelerators tied at the top with 108 laps. Oliver's
Overdrivers - Oliver backed-up by Andy Player, Andy Cole, Peter and Alfie - were
nicely placed just three laps back and the youthful Red Tops - Jerome, Mike D, Ash,
Daniel and Aiden - weren't out of it either on 101 laps. All is Dust had a gap to
the leaders of twelve laps and Acceleration had a mountain to climb to get back 19
laps to top spot.
Segment Three - 45 minutes. Andy and Daniel were running a slick show on race control
and for segment three they turned off the fuel and activated the tyre wear simulation.
This gave teams the option of soft or hard tyres - the hard compound would probably
last the three minutes between driver changes, but the soft tyres would give a more
precise feel and - in theory - should give quicker lap times. Would anyone try them
out?
Again, the captains were on top of the strategy and Oliver, Jerome and Jonathon all
got their drivers to test the soft tyres. The consensus was that hards were best.
Both Oliver's Overdrivers and The Decelerators managed to limit their losses, stick
to four scheduled stops and finish the segment equal second. The experiment cost
Jerome's Red Tops an extra stop and they finished a lap back on 53 laps, equal with
Accelerators - with Corey, Mike McCann, Andy Philips, Harrison and Matt definitely
back on the pace. This was an incredibly close fifteen minutes of racing between
those four teams. Three laps adrift were All is Dust - Alex, John, Terry, George
and Tony.
Two laps ahead of the pack were Mr Oad, finishing with 56 laps. That gave Ryan's
team a two lap lead overall going into the final fifteen. Mr Oad's 164 laps against
The Decelerators 162 was the battle for the win, with Oliver's Overdrivers still
a long shot on 159. Back on 154, Red Tops seemed to be safe in fourth ahead of All
is Dust with 146 and Acceleration closing in on 142 laps.
Segment Four - 60 minutes. For the final fifteen minutes we raced with both the
fuel and tyre simulations. That meant teams would need to keep an eye on both fuel
levels and tyre wear and adjust their strategy accordingly. Drivers would have to
deal with a three-part pit stop menu. It was a great battle, with both Mr Oad and
The Decelerators racing hard against each other. The lead swapped hands and All is
Dust were right up there too for first six minutes. Despite pitting more often, Mr
Oad pulled out a lap lead over The Decelerators. At the final driver change, Neil
had a mighty challenge - to take three laps out of Alex. Both drove superbly, with
plenty of support and advice from their team mates. Alex held on to win the segment
by a lap and the race by three laps - 216 laps to The Decelerators 213. Oliver's
Overdrivers again finished level with The Decelerators, Oliver driving an excellent
final three minutes. That left them in third place overall on 210. Red Tops, Acceleration
and All is Dust all finished the stage well behind the top three. Red Tops scored
45 laps and finished on 199 overall. Acceleration also scored 45 laps to All is Dust's
43, not quiet enough to catch them for fifth. They finished on 187 laps and 189 laps.
Huge congratulations to our winners, Mr Oad. Ryan added another medal and a copy
of Slot Car Magazine to his 2017 WHO treasure chest. Duncan has quite a few WHO wins
under his belt, but this was the first taste of victory at the Barn for Alex, Matthew
and Owen. A fourth place finish for Mike D handed him the 2017 WHO/digital Nascar
team race title, with Duncan second and Jonathon third and top junior. Well done
chaps!
Goodwood Revival pairs race. The evening finished with a bring-your-own Goodwood
Revival race. We cobbled together nine cars - Alex, Mike D and Andy digging out loaners
from their boxes. That meant eighteen racers stayed on for the race and Ash kindly
staying on late to help with the marshalling. We'd have time for two ten minute qualifying
heats, with the best-scoring six pairs going through to a ten minute feature race.
Each of the drivers would race for five minutes.
In the first heat it was 100% American muscle. We had Oliver and Ryan in Mike D's
Scalextric 1969 Chevy Camaro; Alfie and Owen in Alex's Pioneer 1968 Camaro; Aiden
and Terry in Andy's Scalextric '69 Camaro; plus Jonathon sharing Andy's Carrera Ford
Torino. Jonathon handled the big Torino well and pulled out a decent lead. There
was a great scrap between the three other pairs. After ten minutes, Andy stopped
the Torino just short of 40 laps and he and Jonathon would definitely qualify. The
others would have to wait. Aiden and Terry managed 36 laps, Alfie and Owen got 35.50.
Oliver and Ryan were a lap back with 34.50 laps.
The second heat features four Trans-Am cars, plus Alex's lovely Fly Ferrari 250 GTO,
which he was sharing with Matthew. Mike D and Graham were experimenting with a Pioneer
Mustang Notchback. Another car making its debut was Simon's Brut-sponsored Scalextric
Mustang Boss, shared with Duncan. John and Alex were running another Brut-sponsored
car - their Scalextric 1970 Camaro. Finally, Mike and Daniel McCann were sharing
Stephen's Scalextric Mercury Cougar, a previous Goodwood winner at the Barn. Two
pairs - Mike D and Graham, plus Alex and John - blitzed the rest, finishing on 40.75
laps, with the Brut Camaro just ahead. They'd qualify first and second. Simon and
Duncan slotted in just behind Andy and Jonathon's best from heat one, scoring 38
laps. That eliminated Ryan and Oliver. The question then was who would grab the final
two qualifying spots. Sadly, the Cougar hit trouble and Mike retired the car. The
Ferrari needs some development and on a highly-competitive evening, Alex and Matthew
missed out on qualification by less than two laps. Aiden, Terry, Alfie and Owen would
go through to the feature race.
In the heats we had run the fuel and tyre simulations. In the feature race we switch
on the weather. The race would start on a wet track, forecast to dry out as the race
went on. Everyone started on wet tyres and with their very slow wear rate, they could
stay on until the track dried. Pit stops would be fuel-only until that happened.
It was the Brut Camaro of father and son John and Alex who took the race to Mike
D and Graham. It was a breathtaking battle throughout the ten minutes. Another big
battle went on just behind - Jonathon trying to wring extra pace out of the big Torino
Nascar as Simon and Duncan got to grips with their lighter, more nimble Mustang.
Terry and Aiden fought hard with Owen and Alfie and just a handful of laps covered
all six cars at the halfway point and the driver change.
The two Brut cars were heavy on the throttle. John and Alex pitted five times and
looked like they were surely due a splash-it-all-over 'n' dash at the end. Simon
and Duncan pitted four times, as did Alfie and Owen. The other three cars made it
through the ten minutes on three stops. With the track drying out very slowly, Mike
risked a change to hard tyres on his final stop and Andy switched to intermediates.
Both hoped their gambles would be race-winning moves.
As the clock ticked down and the chequered flag was being unfurled, we had John charging
hard in the lead, but rapidly running out of fuel. On the same lap, Mike D had the
wrong tyres, but enough fuel to make it to the end. A lap back, Duncan had jumped
past Andy on that last pit stop and the intermediates weren't giving Andy enough
advantage to make up the time lost in the pits. An extra stop for Alfie has given
Aiden the advantage for fifth place.
Thanks to data crunching and feedback from team mate Alex, John made the decision
not to pit and to stroke the car round the final thirty seconds, keeping an eye on
Mike and Alex keeping an eye on the fuel gauge. It was a gamble that paid off. The
Brut Chevy finished just a few feet ahead of the Mustang to hand Mike and Graham
their first Goodwood Revival defeat of 2017. Not surprisingly, Alex and John were
ecstatic - congratulations to them both! Simon and Duncan took third place by half
a lap, finishing exactly a lap back from the winners. Andy and Jonathon had a blast
racing the big and heavy Carrera Torino and were content with fourth. Aiden brought
the '69 Camaro home two laps ahead of Alfie and Owen's '68 Camaro. It had been an
impressive race for all the pairs.
That was the end of the evening, comfortably before ten o'clock. A very big thank
you to everyone who came along and made it such a vibrant and exciting evening at
the Barn. Special thanks goes to Mike D for letting us use all his stuff, to Simon
for the superb track design with the four-lane section and to Daniel who proved an
excellent assistant on race control, despite having never set eyes on RCS64 before.
- Andy P
