First of all, Happy New Year to all you slot car fans and racers. After ending last year with a special 400-lap endurance race, and based on comments from several of those who attended, we started 2025 with a 100-lap Slot.It Challenge race followed by three regular 20-lap Clubman races.
Unfortunately, O'Brie fell ill and was unable to be a part of it and Ian had previously excused himself from attending events in the foreseeable future. Some of the other regulars were not in attendance, resulting in just six drivers actually taking part in the racing. Merryl was there for the whole event and was a great help with the marshalling, while Alex and Kent each passed through for a while. Nonetheless, we completed all the scheduled races with the usual competitive spirit seen at FRC.
Luke had a disappointment when, having completing just two laps in the Slot.It 100-lapper, his Ramesh-prepared Toyota 88C slowed and then basically became undriveable, not responding to throttle input, something extremely unusual for any car that Ramesh puts his magic touch on. It could possibly have been a chip malfunction, but whatever the case, he was out and never competed in any of the following three Clubman races. These races seemed short after doing the 100-lapper, but despite this, keeping in the slot was key to being competitive and unfortunately Steve had a potential throttle issue in at least one race, causing several de-slots. Peter had quite a number of de-slots himself while pushing his Escort hard, leaving the front running largely to Keith and myself.
The relatively low turnout notwithstanding, it was still a fun-filled afternoon of slots, leaving the first set of points on the board for 2025.
The usual pics to start things off (thanks as always to Luke for most if not all of them):
Alex, Merryl and Peter do some practice laps. Alex is driving my Mini Cooper:
Peter's brother-in-law Mario had his first taste of driving a slot car:
Baby Lucas with mummy:
Peter's new Escort still in its plastic storage box:
Keith concentrating while testing the car he'd drive in the Clubman races:
Ramesh supplied Luke with some cars to race:
Multitasking gramps and daddy:
After Luke's very early car failure and retirement, the three remaining drivers in the Slot.it Challenge 100-lapper concentrate:
Warren and his kids:
Some of the cars that raced parked in the paddock:
Keith's Alfa and my Triumph coming up the hill:
One of the all-important board room meetings:
The Results
Slot.It Challenge 100-Lap Race
Slot.It Challenge 100-lap grid - Gordon/Nissan R89C, Peter/Nissan R89C, Steve/Totota 88C, Luke/Totota 88C:
Computer Slot.It Challenge 100-lap results:
Clubman
Clubman race 1 grid - Gordon/Mustang GT350, Warren/Ford Escort, Steve/Austin A40, Peter/Ford Escort, Keith/Alfa Romeo Giulietta:
Computer Clubman race 1 results:
Sorry... forgot to take Clubman race 2 SSDC results pic.
Computer Clubman race 3 results:
(How this is computed: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=393)
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: To be determined.
Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest no-magnet times by driver and class to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
