EAHORC National Championship: HOGP Chatham 29 April 2012
Walter Plinge, as ever, presents the alternative view.

Walter is back, finally cajoled into action by woodcotes’ nagging egg timer that has been running since the end of April…..

We’re (almost) in Chatham, home of the ‘fun for all the family’ historic naval dockyard.
Chatham as mentioned in my October blog is less posh than our last outing in Marlborough country. Unlike Marlborough wraps are sold here quite openly on the street rather than in trendy takeout eateries, Pain au Chocolate is breaking a tooth on a bar of 99p Lidl finest Bellarom Milk Chocolate while croissant is a quick crossword answer for ‘annoyed relative, 5,4’.

To those of us who attended the inaugural meet here finding the place again was relatively easy, but crikey wasn’t the weather bad this time (a new EAHORC trend?) , first the baked on frost at Ipswich, now howling wind and rain lashing down like a trawlermans’ worst nightmare. Inside it was, despite motherhen1s SF ‘wear a scarf’ temperature warning, plenty warm enough. The rain had however made a dramatic entrance in a couple of places, but thankfully, unlike Malaysia, the track stayed dry.

It was only October when we were (first and) last here, but walking in through the warehouse I found it reminiscent of being in a time warp: at first glance nothing in the track room seemed to have moved or changed since it was last used and the faint whiff of solvent cement was still present. I half imagined that there could have been a half drunk cup of tea, still warm, left untouched after that most thrilling of thrilling ProMod finals….. The memories came flooding back.

On closer inspection there was some great news. New barriers had been added to the previously unguarded accident black spots, in particular in front of the rostrum where from memory errant cars were scooped up by a cardboard box. An even better improvement were toilets we could access all by ourselves! At least I’m assuming they were toilets or were we just soiling mission65’s sanitary fittings showroom?

Most of the usual suspects and some of the not so usual (different to unusual) turned up for EAHORCs biggest day out yet. Great to see Bulian_Joolean there and in such good form, always good value on and off the track. It would be fantastic if he could find the left hand pages in his road atlas and join us more often, subject of course to family commitments and his electrical missionary work in Dar Es Salaam. (It’ll be cool if he can do Edmo too…)

Marctownsend, eloquent spokesman for the political wing of FLBT was with us again after missing Marlborough, now suitably hirsute in the style of Captain Haddock.

Regular WHO attender Diesel made his somewhat mixed first EAHORC meeting of the season and we had the debut of Karl Cooper.

Svelte aesthete (judging by his glam pit box) woodcote was here again hoping to maintain momentum in ProMod while sonofroll1later was obviously adrenalined-up and keen to get his winning ways back.

Before I forget BIG thanks need to go to trenchtownbilly for making sure everything was shipshape and Chatham fashion and mission65 for hosting us again.

Last October would have been most been most people’s first weekend on a proper, sorted, permanent four lane track (we only raced on four of the lanes last time). Those four lanes really were ‘gutter’ free but would using the two outer slots bring us back to the more often than not reality of having a nightmare colour that, like the fat kid in the school playground, never gets picked from choice? Well, er, no, or rather ‘not really’. Several of the, not necessarily outer lanes, had their own, minor idiosyncrasies and I stress the word minor. The outer lanes could certainly hold their heads high although black seemed a little shy of volts on the straight. At least there would be an opportunity to move up a final from any lane although it would mean beating four other drivers instead of the usual three.

Six lanes was also a new venture in respect of spreadsheets and the electronic mctrickery of lap timing. I bet it was andyslots who sorted Trackmate, and it worked flawlessly…


So what about the racing?

AM open wheel : The HO:GP
Qualifying should have resulted in andyslots getting ‘pole with a stroll’ with stupidly quick lap times in three of the six lanes. But it wasn’t to be as we all noticed that he had a couple of bad heats, one of which would count in the total. Cliveharland and sonofroll1later were much more consistent, the former more so, with not a bad lane between them and a lowest lap score of 10.37, they filled the top two slots on the grid with andyslots only slightly behind in third, a testament to his best pace.

Jimb0 did sterling work to take fourth, the last automatic A-final ticket with mikefi fifth and marctownsend trailing in, for him, a disappointing sixth place and thereby consigned to the still likely to be pacy ‘B’.

Below them the dice was rolled a little more…

When it came to the finals there was bound to be a titanic struggle to do well, go up a final and just as importantly not get pushed into last place. There was even more than usual to play for!

All in all it went pretty much according to qualifying in the lower finals but the big surprise was marctownsend. Perhaps race rusty after being forced to miss out on Marlborough due to a commitment in Malaysia he moved from a creditable sixth place in qualifying to an incredible ninth spot in the race with a nine lapper. Not what we would expect from a man of his calibre. Up and coming and still (at the moment) main grade racers mikefi and palros snatched the final two seats in the last race of the morning leaving marctownsend trampled underfoot to worry where it all went wrong. The scene was set for a real stonker, and being the GP, a five minute stonker!

Andyslots, keen to put his qualifying woes behind him streaked off into the lead as soon as the lights went out. Sonofroll1later and cliveharland determined not to let him get away as well as getting the better of each other carelessly came together on the first lap in the downhill bus stop section gifting a larger lead to andyslots. After this I’m not sure whether either of them would be able to get back in touch with the leader and so it turned out. After the crash, which both will no doubt always remember, sonof pulled out a lead over cliveharland who seemed quicker on the track but kept tripping over in his quest to close the gap and never got to see the gearbox of the car in front. Fortunately he managed to avoid dropping into the clutches of jimb0 behind who himself led mikefi and palros back to the dressing room.

A well-deserved win by the man who held it all together when it really mattered and boy, didn’t his expression when the power went off say it all?
Definitely an Übermensch performance from the now definitely come of age confirmed ex wunderkind, andyslots. Even greater things are, of course, now expected……


Lunchtime interlude.

EAHORC had celebrated its tenth birthday earlier in the week and I expect motherhen1’s mantelpiece was awash with greetings cards from places almost as far afield as Derbyshire. And they said it wouldn’t last….. There was little mention of that big day until cliveharland sneaked a two-tone twin cake arrangement in the form of a ‘10’ into the pit area. It seems as if mrscliveharland is a bit of a hochkuchenfrau on the side unless the (until now perhaps) Slottech devotee has hidden talents. A big Walter and other cake scoffers thanks to you, and can we have another….. please.


PM classes

The way it panned out was that with six lanes and the choice of classes there would be only one final per class. This meant that, combined with the lack of any real gutter lane, qualifying was less crucial than usual.


Nascar
Trenchtownbilly was out to confirm the Nascar championship. A pretty much foregone conclusion but the fat lady needed to sing and she did just that, long and hard. How he does it is beyond my comprehension but once again trenchers was easily top dog in both qualifying and the race with only a minor blip in yellow, handing best there to a non too shabby (and possibly chic but it’s not for me to say) jimb0. Perhaps he’s been programmed with Joe90 specs?

While the ‘billy is totally, and that’s not said lightly, dominant in Nascar his open wheel performance is usually less than perfect. Not his canon. Today was no exception with a fifteenth place albeit with partial Tyco involvement.

It’s no criticism, more of a comment, that almost all drivers can only do well in one class at a time. We have woodcote exchanging his rise in open wheel for a good strike rate in Promod now that his Wizzard has found it’s feet and cliveharland who has done the opposite, trading edge of success Slottech appearances for consistent A-final appearances in the mornings, albeit still waiting for that elusive coconut. I suppose it’s only the real greats that can do it all, mbr almost every time and andyslots is getting back into that groove.

Back to Nascar and without mentioning trenchtownbilly again, regular class participant andyslotsbropaul could only manage fourth place in a stronger than usual field but he confirms his number two slot in the table. On the day however jimb0 showed his versatility with a convincing and well deserved runner up spot ahead of slowly on the rise LeeH.


The Mods were rockin’
Mod now and something went wrong here. Diesel was sporting an Artin. Yes you heard it right. An Artin. Why for goodness sake? Because it was flippin’ fast as it turned out against the views of most. I didn’t get a look but I guess the chassis was far from ‘out of the packet’ and fair play to diesel for having the cojones to give it a chance. Top in qualifying showed it’s true pace but in the final it was the mistakes that let the side down and thanks to an unusually tight grouping was relegated to a measly fourth. He was less than a lap behind the winner, but even with such a long lap that was close. BooHoo for diesel; had the race been run again it could have been a great win. Still, a confidence booster after a less than cheerful morning methinks.

Taking the spotlight off diesel for a moment the class was won, as said before, by a narrow margin by asjwood that must have made up a little for his less than optimum eleventh in the morning. Redlineracersdad and the ever cheerful Leet managed to squeeze between them to claim second and third.

While it would have been nice to become champion with a win I guess the dominant this season redlineracersdad would still have gone home happy having been declared champion (just stop going on about it dad, I’ll get Promod, you’ll see). Asjwood must now be favourite for second in class having put a little space between him and Leet in the table.


That new class.
LMP1 has been pretty much dominated by andyslots and roblees this year although the pendulum has been swinging towards the ‘mensch of late. Today andyslots was totally dominant in the heats taking all the reds and purples on offer and finishing nearly eight laps ahead of, improving all the time, mikefi. Of course andyslots was going to walk the final while holding the HO:GP trophy in his other hand wasn’t he. Well, actually, no. I’ve been watching Mikefi recently and he has found that lovely balance of ‘not so flat out it causes crashes but fast enough to make lots of laps’. That sweet spot puts him in the position of ‘just behind’ and ready to capitalise on any mistake on the track ahead, and that’s what happened here.

Andyslots had a couple of crisis moments (again) that enabled mikefi to drift through with politely raised cap mumbling ‘hard luck squire’ and take a well deserved win. The win by Mikefi, following a fifth in the morning probably made him a joy to work with on the Monday.

Roblees trailed badly in third (an out of sorts day for him all round unfortunately, but we all get those) but kept a fair distance in front of palros with KarlCooper bringing up the rear.


It’s showtime!
ProMod has become the real spectacle at the end of the day especially for those who have not seen them run before. A lot has happened since we were last here when sonofroll1later and cliveharland had the battle of battles over the last part of the race with the former taking the glory by a matter of inches. That was a real race of attrition with reliability playing a large part. Back then the mbr prepped G3-R was pretty much dominant, the FLBT Slottechs were on the ascendency, montoya1 was cooking BSRT arms and woodcote was nursing a dog that Rolf Harris, kind as he is, would have put down. Since then in relative terms the Slottechs are on the back, polymer shod, foot while sonofrolllater seems to have lost a little momentum.

Montoya1 is always difficult to judge but the man with it all hooked up at the moment is woodcote, with a new breed of Wizzard that so far cuts the mustard just great. We have learnt that heat is the ProMods worst enemy and most car builders and drivers have sussed how to do it, but not on all occasions. Last time here, perhaps due to the long straight, was a real car breaker. So what happened today?

In terms of reliability it looked fairly cool under the collar and the hood for sonofroll1later, woodcote and marctownsend who was using an ex cryer-non-evo Wizzard Storm and it’s worth a mention that all the ProMods ran together in the heats so we could see them all at the same time. The Montoya1 car seemed fine while cliveharland was clearly struggling with, as we found out on Slotforum later, a hot and bothered Slottech alternating with an almost out of packet Wizzard Storm, neither of which was anywhere near the pace of the rest of the field.

Looking at pace the woodcote car dominated qualifying, nearly seven laps ahead of sonofroll1later with Montoya1 a surprisingly close third. Marctownsend was a distant fourth with cliveharland bringing up the rear, eventually.

The final was, as ever, spectacular to watch. Montoya1 dropped out before half way with a suspected cooking arm which enabled cliveharland to opportunistically claim fourth spot with the rest going to form with woodcote taking another win from sonofroll1later and third placed marctownsend.

Woodcote’s winning margin was about seven seconds, almost twice his advantage at Marlborough. I believe that woodcote, like sonofroll1later a while ago, is not just on the top step of the podium temporarily but has dropped anchor for the foreseeable future, unless…..


Summary of the day..

Yes there was the usual minor petulance when things didn’t go quite so well, the odd quickly regretted growl at a marshal and of course the occasional jocularly disputed track or refused track call (it’s not fair mum, he’s in front of me).

Having said that it was probably the best day ever, but not for a tangible reason, just one of those days, and I’m not saying that just because I’ve got a can of Carlsberg on the go.

As always with EAHORC meets it’s extremely good natured and fun while having some serious racing at the same time. It’s why we keep coming back. The bar of quality is now being raised with every meeting and this was no exception. Somebody is doing something extremely right.


Other news.

Slotforum posts have recently let the proverbial cat out of the proverbial bag about what happens between race meetings. In the old days many took the ‘it was running when I chucked it in the box so it will be running when I take it out next month’ approach and this combined with a modicum of talent and determination was good enough to have a less than shabby result at the next meeting. You just can’t do that anymore. We are now blessed with many participants that have nouse and engineering ability as well as access to tools and tech kit, or at least who are part of a circle, that as a group, do.

Everyone seems to have upped their game. There is much more talk of tweaks and engineering than ever there was. It’s great.

We have, thanks to the wonders of Slotforum, seen the inside of the Sawston technical centre that supports SCHORC. See the excellent post http://www.slotforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=62203 .Having a couple of test tracks is one up on Ferrari, but having them inside your gaff isn’t, even if it has a Dunlop bridge. Can’t imagine Luca Montegorgonzola tarmaccing his hallway, or indeed drying shirts on a hall radiator. While Fiorano it’s not, it’s surely a great (and at the moment unique to HO) asset in assessing handling and pure grunt. And I thought the ‘hall effect’ asjwood bangs on about related to magnetic sensors….

We hear that LeeH is getting a technical centre and hardly a week goes by without FLBT mentioning theirs but has anyone got test arrangements like this? I can see the Sawston Techie putting a wind tunnel together (it’ll dry the washing dear and keep the clothes off the radiators)……


Driver of the day?

Common sense and to go with the flow would be to give the gong to the driver with the HO:GP laurels round their neck. After all that’s what the day was all about, but it’s not that straight forward.

Trenchtownbilly put in another peerless performance to get the job done, again, but this time guaranteed to head the table at season end. Alternatively woodcote for taking the promod win, for the second time in a row, in a no fluke fashion from some classy opposition.

Mikefi probably had his best outing since his schoolboy trip to the Science Museum and on a different day could have got the Plinge plaudit.

Nah, it’s got to go to the morning winner, andyslots, for although the whole morning was not without the odd wobble the final was absolutely flawless with a blindingly fastest lap to boot. Double plus awesome™.


And finally…

We are now getting to the stage in the season when chicken counting champions elect are clearing space for the expected chromeware. Maybe at Edmo(nton) more certainty will emerge but let’s not forget that some scores will be dropped under the special ‘buy ten, only score with nine’ deal. Some drivers who have always turned up and played a blinder could be losing a chunky score and that will be the case for most handily placed drivers. But (I love starting sentences with ‘but’ and now I’ve now left school I can) let’s not forget that one or two will have their scores unchanged due to dropping a ‘no show’ zero who could then sneak up a place… Some drivers have a lot to play for.

As a final thought, don’t forget, when it all gets all shouty on SF that “The one human freedom that cannot be taken from you is the capacity to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances--to choose one's own way." --Viktor Frankl

Or as I’d like to say ‘keep calm and stay reem’.

Until the next time

Walter Plinge

For those on Facebook and Twitter I am on Slotforum
Opwpbmotc

EAHORC National Championship: Ipswich Round 12 February 2012
Walter Plinge, as ever, presents the alternative view.

Ipswich claims to be the oldest town in England with continuous settlement since Anglo Saxon times, with probably not much going on since. Other claimants for the title include Thatcham, Colchester, Abingdon and Marazion in Cornwall. Having driven round Ipswich I can see their point, more where we have been than where we are going.


Recent history, thanks to the new WHO chappies and SCHORC wallahs in particular has meant a gradual swelling of EAHORC ‘travellers to meeting’ numbers and long may it continue. Today however numbers were mainly depleted by a catalogue of personal circumstances and travel issues rather than any declared lack of interest or domestic shackles. Those that could attend, having had to hack the ice off their windscreens with a chisel, faced an interesting, gutter lane, journey to the venue, especially those who had to leave at stupid o’clock instead of being Travelodgers. Prototypical cars stuck on the track, worse still one or two embedded in the scenery, dogged the journey in. Fortunately no EAHORC members were themselves involved in what looked like Leet’s first time on an HO track. (As we will find out later Leet is keeping the wheels, and the body, well and truly on the wagon these days….Bravo)

It would have been so very easy for the ‘travellers from home’ to have rung in sick and had a ‘duvet day’ but no-one chickened out such is the lure of a race day.

Genial, and quite rightly working hard to make it all succeed, host for the day Julian_Boolean greeted us on arrival at the excellent Scout Hut venue for what really must have been, at easily double figures below zero, the coldest EAHORC outing on record, subject of course to the usual confirmation by supremo and archivist, motherhen1. A bacon roll and a mug of Bovril on arrival would have been a great way to celebrate. Perhaps that can be arranged retrospectively next time…..No coypu stew please, or with the venue in mind, bear grills!


Walking through the door the track looked spectacularly unspectacular, safe and fair (notably devoid of any Snoopy dangly bits) and generally behaved so. That’s certainly not to damn it with faint praise but a pretty good real world example of how good a one-off track could be rather than some flashy difficult to drive monstrosity. EAHORC tracks do seem to be getting better as a general trend but they are always at the mercy to a certain extent of the host club but today ‘the boy done good’.

Another much appreciated trend is to use more and more of that USofA CNC track that so drains the EAHORC piggybank; bring it on. Nothing turns a good track into a demoralising lottery more than a shaky joint or wobbly surface.

Just the one gutter lane today, white, that felt and was a little slower than the others with a particularly tricky curvyswervy bit and this was borne out by all the results. Clearly that was the voxpop as drivers either avoided it or came last, with just the one exception. Have a nose if you don’t believe me. Perhaps it was just me but I found white lane far more of a challenge than montoya1’s race report comment suggested it should have been. If I absolutely had to make a general ‘negative’ comment (and I really don’t want to as it was generally a blast due to the good bits) it would be too many changes of direction in the twiddly bits. But again, to compliment the track this is probably as good as it gets for a not done before throw it down and rip it up track and a pleasure to drive. So well done!

Last time here we were dogged (not Snoopy again, or indeed any other connotation) by light on the sensors, probably not helped by the halo of absentee today, thechosenone. There was no second coming to Kesgrave, at least this year. Dead strips have now solved any potential problem, with the counting, not his attendance.


To the racing…

Open Wheel (not F1 please)
With up and coming whippersnappers being so good the open wheel class has been a revelation recently. In the absence of mbr and the dominant at Norwich woodcote, it should have been anyone’s race with a steady stream of ‘almost made its’ from previous rounds to keep things honest.

While I say anyone’s race, Trenchtownbilly must by now have a Nascar trophy shelf that’s as busy as Michael Jackson’s medicine cabinet (probably still a little early for a Whitney Houston gag). Conversely his good performances in open wheel are similar to the search for the Higgs particle: we know it should exist but we have yet to see one…. Keep pluggin’ away mate, it’s out there somewhere! Motherhen1 would call it ‘headology’. Driver of the day awaits.

Around the room there were nine, yes I counted nine, people who could win F1 (sorry OW, slap on wrist), or at least make the top three, without anyone seriously batting an eyelid. Obviously I’m not going to name names (it gets me into trouble) but it really has got that close in the morning racing, that’s very nearly two thirds of the field. Yes, I agree it was an unusual day but even a more typical meeting would have a not dissimilar fraction of potential success stories . Many of those in the ‘other’ category are relative newcomers and very likely to be contenders in the very near future and we are seeing one or two reasonable drivers with less than good cars that could be sorted out.

So what actually happened? Qualy went in a way which gives me little to write home about except that roblees and redlineracersdad were probably disappointed.

Lane choice for the finals was, unsurprisingly given what I’ve said elsewhere, predictably absent of White. This meant that everyone who moved up did so into white lane and then was the tail-end-Charlie, with the exception of andyslotsbropaul who roared past the ‘waiting for the RAC’ redlineracersdad in the D-final.

The remaining results went almost exclusively to form except for montoya1 getting the better of jimb0 for second place overall and starlet leet leapfrogging (a sight to see) over trenchtownbilly to move up a final. See, it’s happened again!


Lunch next which is not really racing, A more than usual mass exodus ensued, and I’m guessing that the local ice cream parlour wasn’t on anyone’s destination list!

Although there is always a scrabble to get the scran down the neck it’s also generally the only time to try and get a few laps in to see if it the PM car still runs after being thrown in the box at the last meeting. Of course it now has a refreshed coating of crisp dust with associated salt. Glorious.


Now the afternoon...

The post lunch racing was a little flatter than usual as the choice of classes meant that only A finals were necessary. An unavoidable shame due to the lack of overall numbers, but we missed the spectacle of grit your teeth underdogs putting pressure on tepidly performing favourites to move up, often as gripping as the big finals.

Nascar qualifying was of course dominated by trenchtownbilly with andyslotsbropaul managing to keep ahead of local lad and genial host, Julian_Boolean, but only just and by a margin in terms of laps that could lead to a swap between them in the final. In the final the Berkshire boy just, well, got going. He did what we all want to do all of the time, turn that one lap performance into more than one lap, and that’s all it was, pulling out a more than marginal lead and was oh so close to eventual winner trenchtownbilly in terms of laps and fastest lap. Interestingly the fastest lap difference between bropaul and J_B remained about the same between the heats and the final but the bro just managed to keep it on the dance floor more of the time.

Lesson one learned and ticked off: you don’t get laps on the floor! We now know that andyslotsbropaul can do a prolonged smiley face. Welcome to the club of drivers who know they can do well; the great newbie hurdle! This deputy winner deserves all the praise he gets for this great step up in form. Is trenchtownbilly now on notice? Possibly, but perhaps only mathematically, as he is only a whisker away from a coronation, but what about next season……..


Returner andyslots was keen to stamp his authority on LMP1 particularly after what must have been a long journey for a disappointing morning qualifying session. Stamp he did, possibly with both feet, and quite convincingly in terms of both laps and lap times in a small field of three but let’s remind ourselves that all three had already won an LMP1 round this season…

The final, with of course everyone avoiding white lane like a whiffy tramp, went as per qualifying with andyslots being just as dominant. Like andyslotsbropaul in Nascar palros used staying on as a means of getting more laps to leave roblees looking surprised to hold the wooden spoon. Palros continues to impress and unsurprisingly is our current best rookie, although it’s all looking a bit tight in that part of the ‘ORC Cup table.


Mod was a bit of a mixed feast with all four drivers taking a ‘most laps’ in qualifying and the fastest laps being nicely shared round too, with redlineracersdad narrowly beating asjwood for pole. The qualifying roundabouts and swings situation made for an interesting final with asjwood winning by almost a lap from the must have been disappointed, but sporting, redlinracersdad. Leet, in third place lane of choice, yellow, was just that. Finterdadofpalros was a distant fourth but I have high hopes for him in the not to distant future……

Following an all conquering 22.50 laps in qualifying, a full lap in front of the opposition albeit in red lane, Leet may have thought the world was his lobster today. In the end he should have done better in the final (easy to say…) but with his best EAHORC cup points haul ever, grinning should take over, and it certainly did. The blistering pace of jimb0’s hand-me-down car will have set Leet thinking about what he needs to do to get further success. Bet he can’t wait for Marlborough…


ProMod generally gets more of a write up as there is always a bit of goss about the cars, and here was no exception. A lot has happened since we were here last year. Remember marctownsend putting his Slottech in the fridge between heats (great word in the circumstances)? Have things moved on since then or was it simply a case of couldn’t be bothered today?
To link seamlessly Promod has been absolutely scorching this season, full of ups and downs for everyone, except perhaps current championship leader, sonofroll1later who has had a clean sweep so far this year, being only briefly challenged at HONK during everyone’s ‘unreliability’ period. He must be pretty much there in relation to collecting the silverware and his rivals must be wondering what it will take to beat him. Although a couple of people have come close to knocking him off his well deserved and long established perch the only realistic hope may well be to distract him with a Match Annual……..

Enough of the past, how did the fastest ones get on today?

Well, uhm, not much to report. Sonofroll1later pretty much dominated qualifying and went on to win the final by two laps after an early absolutely thrilling side by side scrap with montoya1’s challenge ended with shoe issues (wrong feet?). Possibly the closest scrap today: as tight as Paul McCartney’s next pre-nup. The other G3-R tooled drivers are however getting closer all the time. Montoya1, perhaps by being obviously more relaxed in his motherhen1 duties, is definitely on the ascendency. Two second places in a day, surely a first for mrchilltastic? Jimb0 was a most creditable third and interestingly the top three had almost identical fastest lap times. Does this suggest that the Martech and cryer-evo sourced G3’s have now reached their development potential?

Marctownsend failed in the final with a car that never really looked as if it was going anywhere today other than back home in disgrace and the final put the tin hat on an otherwise average day for him. Although cliveharland was not there to give a comparison it does look as if the current evolution of Slottech has sadly had it’s day and surprisingly without an early season win. Perhaps, as suggested by montoya1, Paypal may now have to stretch across the Atlantic in order to ‘go neo’ or even getting with the programme and buying BSRT, or maybe a whizzo Wizzard. Who knows what is going on in the, oft referred to by marctownsend FLBT technical centre? Maybe they are doing a Ferrari and ‘concentrating on developing a more competitive car for next year’. Who knows? Do they? Are we interested? Well yes we are as a challenge to the champion elect will be absolutely breathtaking, and it will happen, one day. Soon?

I was quite disappointed not to see another missing piece of the jigsaw appear today, namely woodcote (open wheel winner at Norwich). Well, not him, his car. His Wizz has been going from strength to strength after a start that was wobblier than a wheel on a clown’s car. He will be at the next round and I look forward to more progress being made so as to keep the pressure on the leader.

I have a final, as yet, unanswered question. Why was the Slottech so dominant in white lane during the heats today?


The championships, well mainly the Club Challenge…….

We are now past halfway through the season, already there are thoughts about what dropped scores could do in the individual classes and speculating about potential winners who are starting to firm up their positions, headed up inevitably but deservedly by trenchtownbilly in Nascar.

In days of old when (couldn’t resist) we were all anxiously awaiting the approval of the, dare I say it, MegaG the club competition was very much something that fell out of the racing rather than being a specific aim of the day. Motherhen1 has been quite rightly stirring the Club Championship cauldron recently to provide another reason (as if we needed another one) to turn up and do the biz.

Talk about the club championship is now starting to come to the fore and Marctownsend is already referring to it on SF as a two horse race between Wilts/Berkshire and Cambs/Beds, following the WHO no-show today. While it is possible the reality is that WHO are now out of this race. We have however been denied a possible dramatic three way scrabble to the top step by a rule change. Shock! Horror! Probe! A forensic examination of the rules and looking at the club table revealed that, unlike last year, there is no longer a dropped score applied to the club pot.
Q: Why have things changed? A: Dunno.

What follows are the 286 (or so: ed) exciting words that Walter would have published if dropped scores still applied:

<<“Is the club championship really down to a two horse race? Far from it! The team competition is still very much up for grabs between what I agree on first glance looks like FLBT and SCHORC, with FLBT the bookies favourite at the moment. But let’s not forget that as WHO will be dropping a zero because of their no-show here that they are just as much in it as SCHORC who could drop as many as 322 points come season end , with FLBT forfeiting 352!. Bring on that (polite) smacktalk!

Below them it’s a straight slug-out between the effectively one man ‘clubs’ represented by trenchtownbilly and montoya1, HONK and LHORC respectively. Again it looks as if trenchtownbilly has it comfortably in his hand, or even both hands, but montoya1 is definitely in the ascendency at the moment and both of them have home rounds to come where they should both have good scoring co-pilots. What’s likely to be the real fly in the comm drops is the dropped score come season end: montoya1’s at best, disappointing start to the season means he is likely to drop a mere 59 points while ‘Mr consistent’ Trenchtownbilly on present scores drops a whopping 122, yes 122. This means that montoya1 would on present lowest scores gain a net 63 points towards a current deficit of 257. That level of deficit sounds a lot but with montoya1 finding more and more cogs in the gearbox at every meeting we could have a great, well, climax, at season end!! If I was Trenchtownbilly (and maybe I am), bearing in mind my weaker class, I’d be fettling my openwheeler to within an inch of it’s life or speaking to a man who we all know can….”>>

Alas, we have been robbed of some drama, and WHO deprived of a shot, and a reasonable shot at that, at the group gong. Boo-hoo. Should the rule be changed? I think so, but can’t see it reaching the snakepit for a proper airing.


Back to more of the real world of 2011/12….

Speaking of rules the debate on Mega-G tyre sizes is back on in SF, not in terms of equivalence, but whether to allow these cars to be bolted to the track like all the others and put the final nail in the Tyco coffin. Equivalence didn’t seem to cut it particularly as the Tyco owners didn’t develop their cars as much as the Mega-G driving upstarts, if indeed at all, as shown by the ever widening performance gap. It looked as if we were simply putting the proverbial lipstick on the proverbial pig. End of.

Equivalence or not the rule must have given a modicum of help to those who race the 440s. As we have seen relatively recently a Tyco can get amongst it on occasions and it’s even been known for Tyco peeps to get the pendulum swinging the other way and appear in A-finals. It’s just a case of a good driver, good car and good day occurrence together with all the planets aligning. Simples! Most of us can’t even do this with a Mega!

What was so special about Terry, and the pretty much, if not totally, standard component car? What if someone did a completely speculative pimp with a low volt arm and a few bits of silver? Could that sort of missile really cut the mustard or just make a mess on the wall? People are hinting that they may have a go. Will they produce a tameable beast or an undriveable rocket ship like some of the early G3R attempts? It would be great to find out but anyone who currently professes to have the definitive answer is simply busking and won’t get my 20p in his hat.

I’m all for giving a, perhaps time limited, lifeline to the Terry lovers and giving them a final throw of the dice. More than slightly tongue in cheek, let’s not keep the ride height as it is but actually increase it by one tyre size to a football formation .442! Or should one of the clubs give this a whirl? That really will let us separate the hot arm from the hot air! We could even experience a Tyco coup! Would’t that be awesome™! As I said, tongue in cheek…..

Times have changed a lot recently, a great crop of new drivers, track electrical problems now being sorted out by elektrikermeister-in-residence andyslots, those lifter things, genuinely state of the art race software on it’s way, more and more plastic track and the list just, like Walter, goes on and on and on. It’s great, a showpiece to the rest, and those who mock. Glass houses and all that….

Driver of the day.

As always there are several genuine candidates that in different circumstances could easily get the ‘Plinge gold today: Sonofroll1later for the double win in two hard fought classes, or just as praiseworthy montoya1 for being double runnerup contrary to fairly recent form.

Today however the golden armature is placed in the hand of andyslotsbropaul for coming of age and moving up several steps of his own ladder. Has he stopped smiling yet? Probably not. Of course we now expect greater things from him…

I’d also (because he’s told me to) like to give a retrospective pat on the back for no show today but open wheeler supreme at Norwich, woodcote. No unbeaten run then…

And finally…..
I was hoping that the trend of ladies attending meetings was going to continue after the recent run. Alas no. I now have a diminishing expectation of seeing a wedding list behind the counter at that raceway in Milwaukee…..

Motherhen1 managed to post the results on the EAHORC website by 2028hrs on the day, surely a new record! Was it purely coincidental that this was the day that montoya1 had two second places? Don’t even bother to vote….
Whatever next, a montoya1 win and a website update by 1900hrs?

So was the day marred by one of the worst attendances in recent years? While more numbers would have been better we were still clear of the toomany/toofew danger area that makes it all a strain and of course some of our usual ‘chat’ mates weren’t about. No, the fun was there, perhaps a little less bouncy than usual and with fewer of us enjoying it, but with the added bonus of an early night! The SCHORC ‘pub team’ contingent had a very happy blast in particular. Banana anyone?
Almost time for a crash and go home finale…..

Movin’ on…..
We now look forward to a visit to Marlborough country. While marctownsend is yet to declare we have been promised the presence of ‘Cheshire cat amongst the pigeons’ cryer-evo, who as we know is quite capable of just walking in and going home with a bit of well deserved silverware. He’s also bringing a few friends it seems. Crikey Moses! I have to report however that following a recent, very unfortunate, theft we should perhaps now be referring to cryer-evo as cryer-nonevo, or even crier-nonevo. He has my sympathy, but I’m sure he is not one to let any level of disappointment get in the way of that cheeky grin and a blinding performance. It’s gonna be a great day. While there may be a video this time (where was the usual one for here?) be there and see it live and of course subscription and commercial break free!


No persons were harmed in the making of this blog but a few egos may have been dented.
Until the next time, whenever that is.

Walter Plinge

For those on Facebook and Twitter I am on Slotforum
Opwpbmotc

Pancake Race at Walter’s, 28 December 2011
Walter Plinge, as ever, presents the alternative view.

Walter Plinge brings you his own ‘Christmas Carol’ with very loose association to the Charles Dickens novella of the same name.

There’s only so much turkey, hot or cold, that you can endure over the Christmas indulgence fest. Everything is super inflated be it festive presents, meal sizes or people. It reminds me that we’ve all sat down at some time and watched ‘Saturday Kitchen’ with a hangover, untouched plate of dry toast and a Resolve shandy wondering where it all went wrong; for instance was it the nine bottles of Magners clashing with that particular brand of sausage roll? The programme features a race to produce a basic omelette in the least possible time, although none of them look particularly edible, certainly not while your current drink of choice is Resolve. In fact the result looks rather like what you are trying to keep down…

Every year me and my slot racing mate, I’ll call him ScaleyJames to protect his identity in case someone knows him, decide to do something with a different flavour between Christmas and New Year that avoids this sort of risk. He doesn’t really do HO, preferring scaley stuff to keep the kids amused and out of trouble and I’m not a great scaley fan.
This year we looked for a slot racing theme with a twist and to cut it short we decided to have our own take on vintage pancake meetings, involving actual pancakes. Wacky or wot?

We kept it hush hush locally to avoid an unmanageable number of entrants (our events are well known) and I mentioned it in that context in the MBR blog.

Unfortunately someone mistakenly thought I was referring to another nationally advertised meeting. One of the usual SF protagonists, inthebluecorner, came out fighting as soon as the bell of posting had rung to be quickly followed by one of his usual sparring partners, intheredcorner1…… I’m flattered that they both took time out of the busy Christmas period to read the blog right to the end. I felt quite accoladed (my ™ this time).
Good to see the backpedalling scrap over whether to use the term ‘Essex’ or a pseudonym during their, uhm, debate. To me ‘The Only Way is East of the Home Counties’ (TOWIEOTHC) just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

For our event to be really authentic and genuinely vintage we spent some time researching and settled on the recipe from Mrs Wilson’s 1920 book entitled ‘Mrs Wilson’s Cook Book’. Nothing like blowing your own trumpet Mrs W.

ScaleyJames and I were a bit concerned that one of our intended participants ran an upmarket deli and that if one of required ingredients was obscure he could benefit from being the sole supplier and use the economic law of ‘supply and demand’ to his advantage and to not put too fine a point on it, rip us off in what we desperately wanted to be a low cost bit of fun. Tight rules were going to be required, and this simple but effective batter mix ticked all the boxes!

The basic premise for the competition was to produce the greatest number of edible pancakes in a three minute period. In addition, in the case of the Chef and Pro-Chef classes an organoleptic score would be added, or in serious cases deducted.

The rules for the competition were agreed as follows:

General Rules

The competition area will consist of a four burner gas hob. Each burner will be operated at full power. Competitors should be aware that burners differ in heat output and cook accordingly.
Any equipment can be used to prepare the ingredients, including the Parma Ham Controller. (it’s all gone a little panto now!)
This is a supplied frying pan and spatula event and competitors may not bring or use their own. No other equipment is permitted during the cooking process.
The competition will comprise of four three minute heats in pairs, rotating around the hob burners clockwise, followed by a final. The best three heat scores will be used to give burner choice for the finals.

Scoring will be by the number of finished edible rule complying pancakes. Part finished pancakes will not count towards the total.

Competitors can prepare the batter mix and any other permitted ingredients either before or during the race, but may not leave the hob area during heats, or between pairs of heats.

Sugar and fresh lemon juice may be applied to finished pancakes as required by the competitor.

All ingredients must be made by a commercial manufacturer and freely available at a reasonable price. No additional ingredients are permitted and permitted ingredients may not be modified in any way, except that eggs must be removed from their shells.

Only a batter mix that had been used in the heats can be used in the final. Additional oil may be added to the pan at any time but must not be added to the batter mix. Any make of oil (including shortening) is permitted but must not be used excessively so as to leave a residue or create smoke that could impede other competitors.

All finished pancakes should have a prototypical black and batter coloured finish and be of one piece construction, excluding any permitted filling or ingredient beyond the batter mix.
In order to count towards the total finished pancakes shall be visually round and symmetrical, not more than 34cm in diameter and not more than 11.506mm thick folded when measured hot. Trimming and reshaping of pancakes is only permitted while a heat or final is in progress.
Any pancake that on examination is declared ‘inedible’ shall not be counted. Any appeal against inedibility shall be decided on the outcome of the competitor eating the whole of the offending pancake.

If during a race there is a power loss to one or more burners or a pancake falls fully or partially out of a pan and impedes another competitor a ‘hob call’ may be called. At this time competitors shall, where possible, remove their pans from the heat until the matter has been resolved. Pancakes must not be worked on during hob calls, nor batter stirred. If a pancake falls onto the floor and cannot be found then a replacement pancake must be cooked.

Standard Pancake rules

The batter mix shall comprise of:
2 eggs in their shells
½ cupful of milk (¼ pint)
1 cupful of plain flour (½ pint)
1 teaspoonful salt
2 teaspoonful baking powder

Competitors may use any style of cooking but the following may be of help during practice:
“Beat egg and milk to mix and then add flour, salt and baking powder. Beat well to thoroughly mix and then pour part of the mix into a hot pan containing three tablespoons of oil or shortening. Toss or turn part way through cooking. The mix will make four large pancakes.”

Chef Pancake rules

As Standard Pancake rules but ground, dried cinnamon must be added to one side of the pancake before folding. In addition a single variety of fruit must be added in a similar way. The choice of fruit species is free but must not be soaked or otherwise worked up except with water. The quantity of fruit and cinnamon is at the discretion of the competitor, but must pass the edibility test.
In addition the judge will taste each pancake that is deemed to be ‘finished’ and award a multiplier score from zero to ten based on ‘niceness’ which will be then be applied to that pancake.

Pro Chef Pancake rules

As Chef Pancake rules but up to five different individual spices, fruits or other basic ingredients are permitted. The use of pre-combined ingredients such as ‘five spice’ are not allowed and sour grapes cannot be introduced at any time. Pancakes may be sweet or savoury.


With the day rapidly approaching entries were rolling in. WalterPlinge, MrsWalterPlinge and the Plingelets were going to take part and girlnextdoor had agreed to be race controller, taster and scrutineer. ScaleyJames together with his children mikeskid1of3 and mikeskid3of3 were keen as mustard to get involved together with postiepete and delidave together with delidaveswife. Mikeskid2of3 didn’t want to play citing a pre-existing X-Box commitment. Everyone had elected to cook in the Chef Pancake class so that made loads of heats but only three move-up finals: the extractor fan would still be on danger money.

There was talk about having ‘spoof’ teams such as WHO (Worthing Healthy Option), HONK (I’ve drunk too much in North Kent) while not forgetting Four Hob Black Top, but that would be taking silliness to the next level™.

The actual day went well with doors open at 1100, just in time for something to eat!
Waltersdog was rather too keen to help using his cat-like reactions to catch any stray pancake, cooked or not, generally before it hit the floor. Walterscat was in ‘dog’ mode and slept through most of the proceedings.

Girlnextdoor was a dedicated judge and now has a few pounds to shed while delidaves wife was deservedly declared the worthy winner.
A great way to pass the time and graze the day away.

Since then we haven’t seen any bickering between those who took part or sideswipey comments from, close or distant neighbours and relatives who didn’t. Ebenezerscrooge has kept his mouth firmly shut. In fact the only comments received have been ‘can we join in next year…’ to which we have all said yes. Aaah.

Thanks for listening

Until the next time

Walter Plinge

For those on Facebook and Twitter I am on Slotforum
Opwpbmotc

EAHORC National Championship: Mussel Bay round at Kings Lynn, 4 December 2011
Walter Plinge, as ever, presents the alternative view.

The approach to KL (Kings Lynn not Kuala Lumpur) was very much like the fantasy terrain of the Lord of The Rings films, you know, the long journey across endless miles of flat land to the raised kingdom with the shiny castle and all the mod cons. I say very like, I mean you get the flat bit but instead of the castle it’s a huge factory. Haven’t a clue what it is; a sugar beet cauldron perhaps?
Driving further along a modern but quite dodgily constructed road system the castle at the entrance to KL is finally reached. I exaggerate slightly, it’s got battlements for sure, but it’s not that tall and you drive through it. It’s the South Gate, situated at the south end of town.

Robert Louis Stevenson in his often (as I am going to do) misinterpreted quote from his 1878 essay ‘El Dorado’ said, ‘…to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive…’. That certainly seems to apply to KL on first impression. However closer inspection reveals a new housing estate the locals call ‘Balamory’ and the new Vancouver Shopping District. KL is probably on the up.

Kings Lynn is on the edge of the Fens which every schoolboy knows but later forgets was low lying fresh and saltwater marshland until drainage and flood protection made it super-duper (that’s ‘well good’ to you youngsters) arable land.
The fens are probably not the best thing to have come out of the sea, I’d reserve that accolade for Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in the James Bond film ’Dr No’ or the submersible Lotus Esprit in ‘The spy who loved me’. If push comes to shove I’ll let you borrow the Lotus….
For a less sexist option I’d go for the transatlantic telegraph cables.

The Wikipedia entry for Kings Lynn tourism is restricted to one sentence which includes the words ‘minor’ and ‘tiny’. You can guess the rest.

Other claims to fame include a piped water supply in the 17th century, five outbreaks of plague and a history of serious house fires as well as being the birthplace of Queen drummer Roger Taylor in 1949 (yes 1949) who moved to Cornwall as a child. With parents presumably

Back to the South Gate, or more accurately half a mile past the South Gate another archway needs to be negotiated before emerging in the paddock area of the Conservative Club. No wonder F1 doesn’t get a look in, hardly room to turn a cat, let alone the mobile gym and Winnebago. The con club is a busy little place that it’s spartan front belies and it’s great to see it apparently thriving with EAHORC up top and a lively, well something, going on loudly downstairs. A multi-tasking venue if ever there was one. The NIA must surely be panicking.

With such a large turnout (not related to 0827 Monday) we were provided with the snooker room as pit space rather than the small kitchen of old. Unfortunately, typical of these rooms, the lack of decent lighting raised the prospect of waving goodbye to any errant motor brush or even toothbrush way before it hit the carpet. The whole room did look rather romantic until Fixit, used to providing instant solutions to industry, got the over-table lights on without the use of a single 20 pence piece. Great stuff!

Hopefully permanent returnee to the EAHORC fold crash@allcorners was once again accompanied by crash@allcornersmissus. I’m sure we would all welcome not only such a supportive partner but a useful one as well. In between catching up with 20th century romantic fiction crash@allcornersmissus was seen to be fettling hubbies car, seemingly even flipping his magnets at one stage, or maybe that was just a trick of the light….

Another welcome attendee was spiritlodger after his second and hopefully last time in the clutches of the NHS. Great to see him back.

The track, thanks to the efforts of Fixit and MBR was as billed, special. Although generally in the style of MBR, for the first time we had two bridges, and they worked. It all ran smoothly, didn’t take up too much of the room and the worst lane was far from bad. A big thank you from the Plinge.

The morning racing…….

Open wheel was, as expected the usual Mega-G feeding frenzy with the five Tycos looking off the pace although beating several regular Mega-G driver also-rans along the way. Shame really as the rules are more relaxed for the Tycos allowing some newly sanctioned clever hop-ups that are denied the AFX boys. If you happen to have or can put together a quick 440 but can’t find the pace of the Megas then looking at the rulebook could help out. I haven’t ruled out Terry Tyco or his siblings Tommy and Trevor, fresh off the workshop ramps, turning up and being successful at some event in the future. Wouldn’t that be great?
Looking down the honours list there are a lot of drivers who on their day can get in the coveted top four and edge towards Premier Grade if not already there but who missed out today. No surprises that returnee MBR was top of the tree in pretty much all areas although in the final Andyslots came extremely close to another win. Cliveharland was there again, this time ‘straight in no messing’ after having had extra practice last time in the C and B-finals before the biggy at Chatham. Palros was the step-up kid this time after qualifying fifth, finishing fourth overall. A day to remember for him and another hurdle of experience straddled without injury. I’m not going mention those who must have been disappointed with their performance for whatever reason…..

The lunchtime stew was ridiculed even before the event by Julian_Boolean as ‘coypu’ and this worry may have resulted in his no-show. In the event the stew, whatever the animal origin, was very passable as I found out at 0827 the following morning, by the usual appointment rather than surprise. Simply a scheduled pit stop, not dash-and-splash.
In fact so delicious was the hotpot that some of the tardies or polities had to go without, including woodcote and mbr who felt sufficiently aggrieved to mention it on Slotforum. Or perhaps mbr knew something we didn’t. On a more serious note is anyone missing a coypu?

The afternoons racing…….

LMP1 looked a little lumpy compared to the flowing open wheel Mega-G variety seen in the morning and how I remember LMPs going at previous meets. It reminded me of the latter Tyco days where some less experienced drivers and others who should know better seemed stuck in the mindset of racing the same old wobbly dog and trying to increase performance with tiny tyres rather than addressing the root cause of poor handling and over driving. If you ain’t got the flow you don’t get the go. It’s the fizziks.
Andyslots was however well and truly in the groove stamping his authority over the non too shabby field in the afternoon LMP 1. It wasn’t that long ago that his form was promising but variable with just the occasional flash of brilliance. Gone now is the foot stamping show at disappointment and the brilliance is common place. A hot favourite to hoover up the silverware at season end?
Palros selected a previously unused gear in the ‘box to produce easily his best LMP1 performance to deservedly displace a slightly off-form Roblees into third place in both qualifying and A-final. Mike-fi is continuing to impress with improving form overall. 1:1 Kart Kid, LeeH, had been a big part of the pre-KL Slotforum chatter and it was great to see him on the track. After a last place in the morning (but why wouldn’t he be as a ‘Branson Airline’?) LeeH was none too shabby in the afternoon making consistent laps in each lane but losing it in his final. Some quite quick laps along the way mind. I’m hoping he won’t take long to reach full potential. Not a bad start at all and we look forward to him improving with every outing but it must be difficult moving from a hands and feet sitting down sport to hands only standing up. The ex RC boys had it so much easier: used to standing up and multitasking hands, hence the meteoric rise to fame of cryer-evo and Darren. Another new member: EAHORC must be doing something right.


In Nascar it was back to the usual ‘Sunday drive to the favourite picnic spot wearing a trilby hat’ outing for trenchtownbilly after his disappointing show at the Chatham meeting where he was clearly and understandably distracted by proceedings. The rest of the field now need to work out where the differences lie between their performances and his. Andyslotssibling did however have his best finish of the, er well, ever, to grab third after a step up from the ‘B’.

Mod was again an interesting roll of the dice that I can’t work out. Like the previous rounds it’s a sort of gentlemanly job-share with each taking turns to throw in good and bad laps and lap times. At Chatham and FLBT best laps and fastest laps were spread across all drivers except stonemanpj while here everyone had a ‘best’ to tell their partners about. Crazy, crazy, crazy. It’s impossible to see who out of the regulars who is going to be top and bottom at the end if the season. Redlineracersdad looks favourite for the title at the moment but mainly through no shows by others. He needs to ignore his EAHORC photo and just focus on winning. Leet just needs a bit more confidence and consistency to grab the success dice more often. But (it’s crept in again) it really is anyone’s game, we wan’t a lot more of this!

Promod once again demonstrated why it is the pinnacle of the sport. MBR took pole with a straight run of purples but with less margin than usual, quite understandably. Sonofroll1later was once again best of the regulars by, disappointingly for the others, a decent margin compared to the short head win at Chatham. The flbt pair were again struggling with pace and reliability between them while jimb0 had the last straight to A-final place.
Perhaps by changing his viewing habits from Scrapheap Challenge to American Hotrod woodcote has now had two consistently more successful Promod outings with the Wizzard that had looked as if it was never going to get form. I had been assuming it’s next outing was going to be an online auction site. After all the trials and tribulations of this car going back more than a season this was something of a surprise, and a welcome surprise at that. Woodcote’s, or rather his car’s, now second consecutive step up in form is good for all and by both stepping up a final and ending up third sends out the message that it wasn’t a fluke. The shoe may soon be on the other hand!

Now photos!

I was wondering whether the new arrangement of putting driver photos on the EAHORC Cup league table was worthy of Walter’s attention. I think so.
Was it the intention that those near the bottom of the table were to look cheesed and on the skids, as if they had not only finished last in their only class final but also lost the telephone number of the Samaritans? Were those in the upper ranks supposed to look as happy as cryer-evo but with a slight tinge of uncertainty? Middle ranks really need that vague sort of ‘non-expression’ we all wear most of the time.
I’m suggesting that motherhen1 gets three mood photos of each driver and changes them after each meeting accordingly.
A bit of work yes and it would of course be great, once again demonstrating how EAHORC operates on another level™. The gauntlet is now cast down for motherhen1 to pick up and hold the camera with.

As far as the existing photos go one or two photos do seem to have been changed recently, especially that of montoya1 where several photos have been in evidence. Can’t think why he chose the current one.. Roblees too has more than one photo on the site. In the current EAHORC championship table he quite rightly displays his happy chappy ‘I’m comfortably second in LMP1 and hoping to be an open-wheel premier grader next year’ look. However look at last years championship table and click on his name link to see the ‘I’m not happy being 23rd in the table’ look, with the small crowd behind keeping their distance. To have universal application I’m going to christen this the ‘track call’ look.
While quite a few photos are worthy of a mention I see thechosenone has used his ‘Smash Hits’ cover photo, robinracer is shown with his hangers-on and the andyslots photo comes from his days as a magician’s assistant, the saw through the head trick is depicted here. He really should look happier being way out in front. Stonemanpj seems to have just enjoyed a quick snort and passed the Tesco Finest Colombian marching powder (with double Clubcard points) and rolled up Ayrton Senna to mikefi. And spiritlodger is there as well.

I really could go on and on and on about the current crop of photos.
There are quite a few that I couldn’t possibly comment on or even hint at without causing offence, but just like a ‘Where’s Wally’ picture can you spot Shrek (there is more than one correct answer) together with a Squawk (I mean ‘SCHORC’) member ‘taking one for the team’ and loving every minute of it?
Please keep the answers to yourself, or at least only share them with EAHORCERs with a sense of humour. I’m probably not in the good books anyway…...

Driver of the day

Only two drivers REALLY stood out for me today:
Andyslots for just getting better and better and now growing in stature with every round. He is no longer ‘wunderkind’ but rapidly turning into something approaching Übermensch status.
The award however goes to Palros for outstanding, way above his norm, driving both morning and afternoon. Something has happened to him. Keep it up sir!

Along day but a good ‘un: thanks to all.

Plinge Extra!

Perhaps understandably I have yet to get on the guest list for the almost hush-hush vintage event between Christmas and New Year. Rest assured that there will be an undercover pancake report from the 28th . Walter’s first, and maybe last, non-EAHORC blog. We’ll have to see how that goes…

Until the next time

Walter Plinge

For those on Facebook and Twitter I am on Slotforum
Opwpbmotc

EAHORC National Championship: FLBT round at Chatham, 30 October 2011
Walter Plinge presents the alternative view

Here we are (almost) at Chatham, gateway to, well, why would anyone want to leave?

Chathams history seems a little lighter than many other places although it was, until closure, a busy naval dockyard adjacent to the river Medway. This brought matelotic joys to the local population, and an opening for a certain profession. That’s about it really. Sorry if I’ve left any of it out….

Apparently the term ‘Chav’ just may just have originated here, standing for Chatham Average in some sort of survey. This seems a little harsh, it wasn’t me that said it and I’m not sure it’s correct. Can’t imagine anyone in their right mind claiming the accolade; ‘that sounds just like us!’

Sonofroll1later, together with anyone who may be offended by talk of ‘ladies’ must skip the next three paragraphs…..

My quick trawl of the local paper worryingly took me straight to a story relevant to the oldest profession, apparently old habits die hard. Either the subject is so rare that it warrants a story or so common that it is difficult to avoid reporting. I’ll leave the locals to comment on that one. Anyway the case before the judge involved a prosecution for running, shall we say, a disorderly house. Apparently Miss X was previously on the point of being arrested when the establishment closed (perhaps a little behind with the rent, boom boom…) and she had to open elsewhere. (Old dog, new tricks…)

At the new premises it was the usual evidence gathering procedure, raffle winning policeman (they have now found that plain clothes works best) is sent with a helmet full of folding to pretend to be a customer. The financial transaction is carried out, without haggling (or should that be ‘hagging’?) for Police discount, and then the PC pulls out (sorry, couldn’t resist), shall we say, before the contract is fulfilled, by as they always say, ‘making an excuse and leaving’. What sort of excuse can you use in these circumstances? ‘I’ve left the gas on’, ‘my car parking ticket has run out’ or simply ‘sorry it’s too late? I wonder if he was offered a ‘rain check’?

Anyway to cut a long story short and get to the funny part of the story before I played with it, the judge complimented the accused on her Louis Vuitton handbag and even asked how much it cost. £500 apparently. The consummate insult to a tom methinks asking only the price of the well used bag rather than the services on offer. Or was it code for something else…….

Welcome back sonofroll1later, it’s safe now.

Arrival at the venue was a little spooky (notice it’s Halloween?) looking like a industrial estate scene, complete with the required puddles, from The Sweeney. I was half expecting to be set upon by a tooled up Molloy gang who had lured us there to steal our stateside goodies, only for a Ford Granada with Nascar decals driven by montoya1 to drift round the corner and restore law and order and shout ‘you’re nicked’. Instead, without a screeching tyre in sight (or should that be earshot) we parked the car by the bushes and followed the box-like HONK sign into the unknown. Well we didn’t actually follow the sign which stayed outside but simply moved in the direction the arrow was pointing. The box wasn’t r2d2 after all.

After going through a couple of dingy passages and a warehouse (all nice and clean mind, like we was expected) we ended up, eyes blinking, in the bright lights of the track room where it was all happening. Very Man From Uncle, and come to think of it trenchtownbilly does bear more than a passing resemblance to Mr Waverley….. If Bletchley Park had been located in mission65’s back room it could have remained secret to this day. On reflection it was more like Bomber Command where small models were being carefully positioned on a road.

The covert entrance is now exposed for the whole world to see in woodcote's ‘short’ of the day, but the air of secrecy is given dramatic attention due to the selection of Bachs ‘Toccata and Fugue in a Morris Minor”, er I mean G minor. Woodcote no doubt chose the out of copyright music to avoid the attention of the Youtube royalties police and ending up as a silent movie where the ProMods look unrealistically fast… As many of you will have noticed we don’t actually get to the Fugue, but that’s film scores for you. For those of you who store their Bach in traditional Bach Werke Verzeichnis order it’s number 565, in the section between the Trio Sonatas and the Trios and Miscellaneous Compositions. Third shelf down for most people. Just a jape, most people will have their Bach pre digested as a ‘best of’ or ‘the more tuneful Bach that people might recognise’ CD. Isn’t QVC such a wonderful addition to the cultural spectrum?

Don’t panic (or perhaps panic) if you actually own the 78, 45, Musicassette CD or SACD, but rumour has it that this piece did not emanate from Bachs quill at all. It’s now thought to have been composed by some later imposter, a sort of Baroque Tribute artist. The reasons given to think it is not Kosher include, the unique parallel octaves in the opening bars, the rare true subdominant in the fugue as well as the piece ending with a minor plagal cadence. So if you’ve kept the receipt, take an afternoon off and explain to the waif behind the counter in HMV why you deserve a refund. Do let us know how you get on.

On to the track and venue itself……
The general chaff on slotforum offering large quantities of generally contradictory advice during the prolonged and difficult birth of the HONK baby suggested that this was going to be one almighty compromise that would offer at best all the mistakes that trackbuilders make. After all with a permanent track the problems could run forever. Doubtingthomas1 together with doubtingthomas2 and doubtingthomas3 were going to be having a field day.

I was not disappointed to see that this was not the case, in fact far from it.

Walking through the doors into the excellently lit room one of my bête noirs seemed to be there, the long straight, but on this occasion it was proportionate to the rest of the massive track so I’m not complaining. That must have been one hell of a boxed set! How many cars came with it?

The track had more variations than I thought it was possible to have with no element missing and it all ran pretty much faultlessly. I did like the changes in altitude that gave us an element we only usually get with those compromising bridges.
Absent though were those afterthought tricky little tweaks and the dodgy piece of track.

Yes there were a few minor niggles, mostly fixable or things, like the barriers, that weren’t quite finished, but so what? When we return in April it will all be fine.

I would however have liked to have been able to see the track surface over all of the circuit’s length, but increasing the height of the rostrum would help a lot.

Overall, fantastic, and a big ‘Walter Plinge’ poker of fun hats off to mission65 and trenchtownbilly for seeing what must have felt like a nightmare at times through to a smug faced dream come true. I want one! National home of HO anybody?

A permanent circuit will of course need names for the various components, and there are jokes to be had, especially with the straights and complexes.
We have already made a start by common acceptance naming a section of the track, quite rightly, Laguna Seca, that special edition Renault. Can I suggest that after seeing leet and other’s painful sitting position on the marshalling box inside the highest section at the end of the straight that we name that bend ‘Crapper Corner’ which would also reflect the bend’s degree of difficulty.

The running water facilities were a little novel though.
It was a long time since I was last escorted to the toilet, it was in Junior School to be precise following an unfortunate muscle relaxation during a maths lesson. All those surprised little faces……. Yes seriously, it happened. If I’d wanted to be funny I’d have gone on to say that this was the moment when I realised that teaching was not for me.

Anyway, this was the first crocodile for EAHORCers since the getting in fiasco at Gaydon. I was a little unsure as to the protocol for this accompanied outing to the porcelain but in the end decided not to proffer a tip, of any description.

On to the day itself.
The Formula 1 (I mean open wheel) was as ever closely fought. Highlights included cliveharlands two final step up into the ‘A’ (almost unheard of these days due to field quality but perhaps made easier on a six-laner) and the absolute blast of a tussle in the A final between marctownsend and andyslots with barely a fag packet between them for most of the race. And how on earth did newcomer Darren get pole? Raw talent I’d say, another cryer-evo?

The length of the never ending uphill straight made Megas look slow and the only Tyco (woodcote) positively pedestrian. The many seconds it took to get from A to B enabled a quick look at the depressing lap times, a check for new emails and go to the , well perhaps not that long.

Robinracer was man of the day in Nascar displacing the more usual trenchtownbilly who had the success or otherwise of the day to think about, although he did put in some decent heat scores. Mission65 and mission65John were impressive in their first Nascar outing among what was a larger than usual and class field.

Redlineracersdad and asjwood virtually dominated the Mod qualifying so it was not without justice that they finished first and second but sadly for asjwood, in reverse order of qualifying.

Roblees, in ‘rural chic’ attire was determined to win the 3.45 at Chatham, the LMP1 stakes. With grim determination he did just that, by just half a lap from returner thechosenone who seems to have lost little of his sparkle. Darren was again a great contender, finishing third relegating top qualifier andyslots.
LMP1 is proving to be a really hard fought and quality class, but Montoya1 needs to find his way back to the ProMod fold.

ProMod was initially a war of attrition in the heats with all four competitors facing reliability or heat management issues but with those qualifying later being able to take advantage. Race of the day had to be the Promod A, er only, final where after only a short time marctownsend and woodcote had fallen by the wayside, quite literally. That enabled sonofroll1later and cliveharland to battle it out ferociously knowing that worst case was second place and loads of sympathy. For what seemed like hours they appeared attached by a short string while exchanging the lead at least once a lap in a dazzling display of self belief and confidence. There could only be one winner, and it was sonof, by a very short head indeed. Definitely the HO highlight of the week! Phew.

Coinciding with thechosenone’s welcome reappearance (not the second coming, as that was ages ago) we had several people giving sermons from the driver’s pulpit on what was and was not a track call, with the opinion swaying depending on the circumstances of the preacher. We even had a preacher change his mind……
The success of this sideshow means that I am hoping that this ‘open mic’ event will become a regular feature. Please suggest topics to motherhen1 for Kings Lynn as soon as possible please….

Walter is now going to have a whinge, a big one. ProMod this year, helped by the relaxed armature rules, has provided the spectacle of spectacles, at least one classic race per meeting where ProMod has run, and that’s the point. The hike in performance has been accompanied by the new and crucial dimension of reliability that we don’t see in other classes where cars can run all day and stay as fresh as a daisy. More power equals more strain on the bits and much more heat. One or two ProModders have been seen to try and talk others into pulling out of ProMod so that the class would not run because of the risk of their expensive car not being up to the job. Get real folks, the cutting edge is a double sided sword. It’s what F1 (not open wheel, Indy or Champ) had to deal with in the unlimited spend years. It’s down to you to produce a car that you think you can do best with, and that may not mean the fastest over one lap. Chatham saw some people cleverly pacing their car in the paired heats as it seems clear that six minutes is sometimes just too long to keep the heat levels manageable. So don’t drive flat out all the time, be aware of what is happening to all the other cars on track, build a cooler running slightly slower car, think about what other people are doing / have done and act accordingly and many more things besides. It’s great for the whole room (as well as Harden Creek) so don’t spoil it, run with it, get the advantage. Rant over.

Driver of the day now.
A few candidates today
Darren, on his first EAHORC day being top open wheel qualifier and third in the final as well as a great showing in LMP1?
Sonofroll1later who together with cliveharland provided that stunning ProMod final entertainment and took his first class win?
Or it could be cliveharland with two step ups in the morning (exercise can be a killer mind) and perhaps the best ProMod heats (or should that be heat) strategy?

Sorry, but today there are more important things to deal with.
So no driver of the day or accompanying coconut, but the people of the day award goes jointly to mission65 and trenchtownbilly for providing the best big top in town. Well done sirs!

And finally….
Has anyone else noticed that montoya1’s race reports are becoming, well just more racy. Almost Plinge like in places with that chatty style. Could this be a takeover bid or something else. Left hand and right hand? Egotist and Alteregotist? Dr Jekyll and Mr Hydeandseek? Hmmmm…..

Speaking of montoya1 I see that the link from EAHORC website to Walter’s blog has been removed. Has Walter upset elsupremo1 or was the site struggling with all the hits?

A long days racing but for once there were no complaints. I wonder why?

During this event and later on slotforum montoya1 has displayed emotion not seen before, equivalent to receiving his first snog, or more besides. Others were similarly affected. No doubt wives and girlfriends are continuing to yawn listening to descriptions of how the day went…

A bientot mes amis, well it appears mostly mes amis!

Onwards we march to Kings Lynn where we look forward to seeing our old chum mbr again and the début of mbrsonandheir. Long live the king!

Can’t wait.

Walter Plinge

For those on Twitter and Facebook I am on Slotforum
opwpbmotc

EAHORC National Championship: FLBT round at Marlborough, 2 October 2011
Walter Plinge presents the alternative view.

For this the second meeting after the summer break the Citroen Saxo that is the entire EAHORC machine rolled into Posh on the Downs, or as the locals prefer to call it, Marlborough. Bernie could learn a few things from motherhen1 about downsizing his own travelling F1 behemoth of behemoths that occupies a plane and he doesn’t even take the track with him! The following morning the EAHORC supremo was joined by the usual happy campers and Wingeybagos that constitute the drivers entourage.

First lane choice of the day for most participants was how to get to the venue. The online route planners, theAA, TomTom and GreenFlag, that I use to plan when time is tight (when isn’t it these days) produced the usual differences in routes, in this case either get off the motorway for Newbury or stay on until Hungerford. I decided on Newbury, but you know when you choose a lane and then regret it…..

You all know I like to give a little information about the locality, so here we go. Just scream if you want to go faster, or just skip a couple of paragraphs.
Marlborough is famous for, well, not much of late, if indeed at all. The town woke up to the sounds of the English Civil War in 1642 which took local residents minds off their usual day to day challenges and then there was the great fire that swept through the town in 1653, destroying 250 houses. Most of these houses grew back but slow learning and a lack of imagination or perhaps a serial arsonist resulted in two further major fires in 1679 and 1690. Things had very much peaked for Marlborough by then, however I read in Wikipedia (purveyor of the absolute truth) that in 2004 Marlborough celebrated 800 years of its Town Charter and among the celebrations was a street play by the Marlborough Players entitled "Wheels of Time" and a visit from HRH Prince Charles. Must have been out of the room when that came on the news.

Marlborough oozes ‘posh’ all over. It’s Waitrose of course and it must be Tea Rooms to the exclusion of Wimpy and the likes. Greggs have no chance. Chinos are fine while shoes should be broguey unlike the accent that just dribbles plum juice: style always comes before fashion. Marlborough is however known for it’s very own Marlborough College. This is where the rich, famous rich and the occasional royal send their offsping to be educated and updated in the good ways of the world. A tall order bearing in mind that the college was found guilty, with almost 50 (well 49 then) other schools of similar ilk, of operating a price fixing cartel whch had allowed them to drive up prices for thousands of parents. In an absolutely blinding piece of naievity, demonstrating just how in touch they were with acceptable behaviour and the law, the then head of the Independent Schools Council wrote, following the verdict, complaining "They (the schools) are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed”. You just couldn’t make it up could you.

Among the list of Old Marlburians (who made that name up?) are far too many household names and unknown people of high office and influence to mention but as with any school, it includes the odd crim, bankrupt and expense claim scandal MP. Names supplied on request.

Published news from Marlborough College, like any other public school is often bad news, otherwise it just wouldn’t see the light of day, but just the usual boring sex, drugs and bad behaviour cocktail as far as I can see. I’m sure that most children can achieve that level of behaviour without their parents shelling out anything like Marlborough money. But (it’s that ‘But’ again) it never fails to amuse me that just as the age of people is ubiquitously reported (…a distressed Johnny Jones, 47, was today ..) any article about a public school just has to include the fees (from the Daily Mail in 2007 “….father of former pupil Rhys Gray tried unsuccessfully to sue the £24,600-a-year school, claiming that its expulsion of his son….”

Get as many facts as possible in a sentence the man at Journo school said, and if you can make up some figures it looks well researched, like you’ve spoken to someone…
Enough of the local surroundings, interesting though they may at first glance appear to be….

Thechosenone was once again absent but we hear that thechosenone’sintended is with child: congratulations from us all. Immaculate conception? Dunno, It seems rude to ask…We’ve only seen him perform at speed with a grin at the end followed by the shaking of hands with all those involved. Hopefully that recollection is not overly relevant.

It was with considerable amusement we all learnt that thechosenone’s absence from the first round at Yelling was due to him wanting(??) to attend a Wedding Fair. Priorities my boy, priorities. Sounds like he needs a watertight ‘pre-nup’ now before things get even more out of hand.

The consolation is that he has for the second year in succession been voted ‘the keenest man in slot racing’ by ‘Brides’ magazine, so his signature block in Slotforum can be reinstated. He’s now looking forward to an immaculate reception: Boom-Boom. Walter is not expecting an invite.

Getting down to the serious stuff (why?) the venue for the day was a church hall, a big one at that. Seems strange that a church hall was available on a Sunday. Was thechosenone pulling a few strings? Unlike FLBT’s first attempt at a meeting in north of M4 Purton, on this occasion the doors were open on arrival.

The FLBT trackwallahs had done a sterling job of producing a relatively small but interesting and challenging track based partly on their usual semi permanent Scalex track. All the best key elements were there, but no stupidly long straights and no annoying ‘gotcha’ tricky elements that seem to dog most tracks. I guess these ‘gotchas’ occur as a result of trying to get one piece of track to meet it’s neighbour, surely they can’t be deliberate. I’d stick my neck out and say that it was one of the best tracks of late. See, it don’t have to intricate and massive to be a good un! The downside for FLBT was that the height of their existing track with built in legs and the hall tables was a tad different. I guess, to their credit that this was discovered before the day as all the tables ended up wearing built up shoes; a labour of love no doubt for some poor FLBT short straw person.

Despite the near record turnout, for once pit space was not all occupied, another great plus as we could all spread out. Nothing worse than a nudge from an adjacent mechanic that results in a painstaking search for a brush spring that has escaped and returned to the wild.
A free hot drink facility with complimentary Rocky Road courtesy of Rocky, er I mean roblees really did tee (pun intended) things up for a potentially great day!

Cryer-evo managed to make another appearance despite the repeat slipping pinion on his prototype mits-evo. Rumours of him retiring from HO after half a season to spend more time with his good looks appear to have been greatly exaggerated…..Good news indeed.

Welcome to all EAHORC virgins but I have to mention oppositelock who as well as making a fair start to his HO racing career produced a superb Chumley-Warneresque video on the event that is now available on Slotforum. With andyslots, sonofroll1later and woodcote also producing cinema verite (car on the wall) documentaries I have to ask the question are we racing or running a bleedin’ film festival?

FLBT as ever, for a virtually non HO club, was well represented by it’s members including marctownsendsprog1 and marctownsendsprog2, probably their third or fourth appearance by now.

More and more of our fashion conscious attendees are sporting this years ‘must have’ accessory, the BRP controller. As well as good looking they really do seem to help their owners do the business.

I always bang on (yawn, yawn) about the lack of variety and visibility of HO bodies, but I think it’s finally working. This is in spite of motherhen1’s rule change which bans fantasy repaints in F1, I mean open wheel, no, the one season only Panoz DP01 champ car. Quite why anything other than a 2007 Champ Car livery is not classed as fantasy I can only speculate especially when the rules on Nascar paintjobs are so anally tight. Maybe I’m just on the wrong brand of Mescaline. On the other hand and perversely, fantasy liveries emanating from the AFX manufacturing machine are absolutely fine! I can only speculate that motherhen1 wanted to eliminate any chance of andyslots pinky purple colour scheme appearing again, you know the one that looked like a large blood clot.

I was expecting the usual charity shop to fill the space left by slowracers trading emporium following his decision to keep himself local. Not forgetting of course that slowracer is still in the motor trade and mbrmartech is still available ‘mail order’ another stall holder selling Mega-G stuff has stumbled into the room. As well as what seems like a complete set of parts there are also some rather tasty bodies. Unfortunately offerings were a little under par as I understand Patto, the decal man, was off on a long holiday leaving quite a few bodies nationally awaiting final finishing touches of the non fantasy kind. I now know that Patto is back and posting decals to people as I write so expect some new bodies on show and in use at Chatham. Can’t wait to see what people come up with but rumour has it that andyslots is burning the midnight oil to find a real car that raced in what I believe is called Pantone Striking Purple so the rest of the aerosol can be used.

And now to the racing…
Roblees was first to fall foul of the little known and new ‘stay where you are’ rule which prevents drivers leaving the drivers station during heats and rotation between heats under penalty of, well, maybe 5 laps it says. It’s a time saving ruse to try and get through the racing more quickly or perhaps give more time to discuss new rules. Anyway, roblees left the plug-in zone between heats to retrieve his car, have a quick maintenance ‘look-see’, resticker and drop in the new lane and got barely into his stride before being handbagged by motherhen1 and told not to move or the dogs would be set loose. Well not the exact words but there was a distinct atmosphere between the two ‘ground standers’ and not totally the happy sort Russ Abbott used to sing about either. It seems drivers now need a friend, McKenzie friend or a keen marshall to make it all work when lanes change. An imaginary friend will not be good enough…

The next and final rule debacle occurred when stonemanpj’s open wheeler was spotted without the sticky-up bits at the ends of the cut down wings. Some thought that they should have been replaced under the rules. Motherhen1, although with a distinct look of rabbit in the headlights about him, was convinced the rules said otherwise while stonemanpj looked completely unaware. As second qualifier and clearly on a roll, could endplategate spoil his day? As it turns out simply hacking the ends off is quite legal so the Human rights Act didn’t have to be rolled out and stonemanpj took a brilliant narrow margin win over top dog qualifier wunderkind andyslots who later blamed his faulty, scarily purple, controller. I’d be happy with that controller if it got me a second place! Move up kid sonofroll1later was a handy third relegating cryer-evo to fourth in a supremely close final.

Lower down the order FLBT regular and new BRP controller owner cliveharland found his recently absent heat form to both qualify and finish in sixth place. Gone are the days for everyone when it was possible to move up two or maybe three few finals after poor qualifying. Even if the ‘move up lane’ is relatively quick the top to bottom quality of the field usually precludes any level of march towards the gong. Many people found themselves out of sorts and therefore out of place in qualifying, with mikefi and redlineracersdad being two of the big losers going from straight into the top final at Yelling to finishing in double figure places here. On the other hand roblees started his stellar day by qualifying fifth after three great heats and staying there after a high scoring and close fought final. The EAHORC world said a sad goodbye to Terry the Tyco after an impressive seventh place outing with handler robinracer. End of an era.

After lunch roblees was on sparkling form in LMP qualifying in pole with ten percent more laps than second heatmeister, darrenmorgan. Andyslots was a miserable, and I mean miserable, fourth behind the variable but definitely up and coming mikefi. His only comfort was in setting a fastest lap half a second quicker than anyone else. Scalded, then left out in the rain all night, cat andyslots finally found the blue touch paper on his rocket boots to fly past matlock, into the A-final. Even he, with new found gusto could not however unseat man of this moment, roblees, but left darrenmorgan and mikefi trailing in his wake. It all goes to show what a lack of travelling does for results; roblees lives but a stones throw from the venue, well a strong bloke and a very aerodynamic stone. Wow!

Nascar was it’s typical ‘Groundhog Day’ affair with this season’s usual suspects trenchtownbilly and robinracer first and second in a much depleted field of three. Sorry boys, not much else to say.

Modified was taken by a fortunate redlineracersdad hotly pursued by newbie daveogden. This was ahead of stonemanpj and Leet who’s car experienced several out of body incidents.

Spectator highlight of the day was the rule refreshed Promod class. Now with balanced armatures and even more drivers it was very much unknown territory, especially as the class had not run at Yelling. Montoya1 managed to lose an arm (and a leg at $15 a pop) in the first of the ‘heavy magnet can produce light smoke’ experiments that could permeate the season with his ex cryer-evo G3-R.

A tad ‘off day’ woodcote and cliveharland’s mechanical problems in the heats left qualifying slightly skewed from previous form but there was no doubting that cryer-evo was likely to be top dog overall. One of the best races of the day was the B-final tussle between jimb0, with a cryer-evo G3-R and the finally on song Slottech of cliveharland in what seemed to be a never ending battle. Great lunges gave frequent albeit temporary changes in position, although there were long periods of running virtually alongside each other, while the infrequent ‘offs’ suggested they were both in reasonable control of the situation (yeah, right). In the end after a couple of offs on both sides it was the recovery time from these that put jimb0 sufficiently ahead to make cliveharland concentrate on keeping the not too far behind woodcote firmly in third place after being told by FLBT team mate marctownsend that there were only seconds to go.

The A-final, now including the hot car and brain of jimb0, was next. On qualifying form cryer-evo should have just disappeared into the distance with the wind in his, well just disappearing then, but that was not the case with marctownsend finding the turbo button at last and hanging on for all he was worth. The race was getting towards the end with marctownsend only a second or two down at most, with both drivers having knocked two tenths of a second off their qualifying times. The battle was on, but as usual a crash decided it with cryer-evo finishing just over a lap ahead. Sonofroll1later had a conservative final in terms of outright lap times compared to the heats, but maybe seeing the pace of those ahead he sensibly concentrated on keeping jimb0 behind.

Driver of the day?
Candidates must include cheshirecat cryer-evo for his cool headed (it’s the lack of hair) win in Promod and far from shabby showing in open wheel, and andyslots for a pretty good day all round. However it’s going to be stonemanpj for winning the class with everyone in it while still a maingrade driver!

Roblees also deserves a mention for two above expectation performances. We want more of roblees, and with a few lessons from motherhen1 he could also help out on race control…. Has he got the schedule for the rest of the season???

And finally…
It’s a real shame that Terry the Tyco has raced his last. The assumption now is that the minimum tyre size rule will fade away before very long. I’m not sure that this would be progress and certainly shouldn’t happen without a level of debate. Rather than have it sprung upon us all can I suggest to motherhen1 that he starts a thread on slotforum well before the end of season rule changes? After all, Essex is not always the only way………….

Walter Plinge

For those on Twitter and Facebook I am on Slotforum
opwpbmotc

EAHORC National Championship: WHO round at Worthing, 19 June 2011
Walter Plinge presents the alternative view.

This was EAHORC’s third visit to the seaside this season. As with any trip to the coast there were cries of ‘are we there yet’ from well before half distance, not to mention scoffing the sarnies and sipping the hot but stewed tea from the rusty Thermos. This time the destination was Worthing, gateway to Brighton.

Sources close to the local police Inspector’s wife told me that news the Mods were visiting Worthing had shocked the force to such an extent that all leave had been cancelled.
What’s the fear about the Mods then? Surely a more laid back bunch of people would be hard to find? You couldn’t put sonofroll1later, new Mod champion, in the same sentence as Police without sniggering. For younger listeners, or those who have yet to see the excellent film ‘Quadrophenia’, there used to be regular pitched battles between the Mods (the smartly dressed thugs) and the Rockers (the not so smartly dressed thugs) in the 1970s. The former rode scooters (no not the JD Bug sort; Lambrettas and Vespas) with the latter clattering about on motorbikes. They made a habit of clashing in a violent manner, mainly on Bank Holidays (don’t ‘ave to go to work Monday see) at various locations on the sarf coast all within a tankful of smoke central, and it certainly weren’t pretty. The film Quadrophenia (available in most good shops) includes scenes of the gruesome violence and Sting’s appearance as a hotel Bell Boy by the name of ‘Ace Face’. His portrayal was as dynamic as his overall persona. History aside the plods rapidly got the message that this years appearance of the Mods was not going to be quite the motorised mayhem it used to be, but simply an EAHORC class. Police leave has now been reinstated.

When I heard that the venue had changed I was hoping that that the whole of the EAHORC world would be allowed into that hallowed territory, the English Martyrs Catholic Church, WHO’s usual home ground, known locally and affectionately as ‘The Barn’. Probably uniquely for a slot car club it sports a complete and full-sized replica of the ceiling paintings from that bastion of tourism, the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Apparently michaealangelo, author of the original, was asked to do the Worthing replica himself but was not too fussed about the travelling. In the end a couple of local boys got the job, but in order to complete the masterpiece needed sketches of virgins supplying. Descendents of those artists now run one of the local ice cream emporiums, as the decorating work, like the paint, dried up. They’ll still do the odd job for cash though, and can paint a 1 bedroomed flat in a weekend, 2 coats mind, while leaving a slight whiff of pistachio behind. (This last sentence extracted from ‘The Producers’ by Mel Brooks and then slightly reshaped. A big sorry to the original, it deserves better)

The new venue was however simply the upstairs of the old venue. Not much of a change then, hardly worth inconveniencing the electrons to tell us in advance really. That’s two minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Courtesy of Mrs Freeman Headteacher of Heene Community Centre Playgroup we had two rooms to use, slightly unfortunate but understandable that they were furnished like something out of Gulliver’s Travels. While the Lillipputian fixtures and fittings made marctownsends offspring feel at home everyone else had to squeeze in and live life a little lower than usual. Not so much a big day out like the HO:GP, more akin to a small one. Not sure that two rooms helped the race situation either, with there often being fewer than usual marshals, although the extra space was a bonus. On the big plus side, great track, one of the best this year, thanks, having everything except one of those ridiculously long ‘road movie’ straights. It was probably a track that 18 months ago MBR would have been swapping between the two makes of F1 before making a choice. As it is now the Mega-G Geniuses are gradually improving their cars while the Tyco Psycho’s have halted development in order to try and find the last toy in the pram, so no contest.

Much to everyone’s disappointment the T-shirt showdown between asjwood and thechosenone failed to materialise. Thechosenone had made a fantastic effort with the slogan ‘Death To The Pixies’ together with a suitable graphic. The messianic message was always going to extend at some point to embrace ethnic cleansing, and I expect the meek are going to be written out of the will quite soon. Presumably this doesn’t include the pixies that set up the track before meetings; otherwise the big people would have to step in. But (you keep starting sentences with ‘but’, it’s just not correct even if it feels right) a no show by asjwood means the trophy goes to thechosenone. Well done indeed sir!
Perhaps knowing that asjwood had a previous engagement could jonathon-come-lately cryer-evo have been trying to muscle in on the action with a late gatecrashing entry? Scrubbed up, polished and looking like a member of a ‘Right Said Fred’ tribute band while sporting a T-shirt with the slogan ‘LADIES MAN’ loudly emblazoned across the front could surely have no other explanation. That image (available on slotforum), in my book, really did crank the irony handle to the very max! Too sexy for his shirt? No, just deeply dippy. Sorry c-e, nice try but no coconut. (As an aside, what will cryer-evo do when his looks go?)

As usual I was tempted to ask slowracer, CEO of ‘The Stall’, whether he had any Mega-G’s of any description in stock. You know, those low cost cars that are currently in production that are becoming essential in EAHORC open wheel competitions, not to mention LMP next season. As ever I resisted the temptation knowing that the inevitable answer would be ‘no’. To go and ask would mean struggling to keep a straight face while feeling like a naughty schoolboy who had just knocked on a door and run off. Ten seconds later I’d have been back in the pits, sides-a-splitting, wondering if the jape had been rumbled.

We’ll all miss slowracer next season if he sticks to his pledge not to race at venues out of bladder range. I, for one, will miss not only his company but also the trip down memory lane that is the stall ‘Tony’s Bygones’. I expect he will still get a mention here and, well here…
I’m hearing rumours that the club that slowracer has made his own has had to cancel the first of the planned merchandising products at the pre-production stage. Apparently the T-shirt slogan ‘I ♥ Yelling’ could intimidate marshalls.
I see slowracer’s EAHORC profile has him down as a ‘small works builder’. What if he were taller?

I think that’s enough mention of slowracer for most people.

It was thechosenone’s turn to be nutted by a ProMod this time. As with Jimb0’s incident at the HOGP the end of the main straight was the wrong place to be. Fortunately no permanent damage was done but now ‘once bitten’ they could be fighting over who has the EAHORC cricketer’s box next season. How romantic.

Now the racing….

Open wheel in the morning was as close as it has been lately, flippin’ close. MBR as usual took pole, but not without a fumble in both red and blue lanes in the heats. In the A-final MBR was back on form to take the win with marctownsend’s ultimate talent putting another occasional head above the parapet to help him home oh so very very close behind MBR. Cryer-evo rolled in third with thechosenone slightly under par here to be slightly more Clark Kent than Superman.

In the afternoon FLBT stalwarts cliveharland and marctownsend elected to enter Nascar rather than visit their usual ProMod lair. The official reason was the lack of Slottech kit after the carnage of Gaydon and of course their dice for that championship had pretty much rolled to a conclusion. By entering Nascar however they could cunningly support boy wonder andyslots in his championship bid if they could take places away from his rivals, montoya1 and trenchtownbilly. In the end it was a fruitless exercise with the class being so competitive that they could only manage a B-final between them. Despite andyslots reaching the A-final he was thwarted by thechosenone and fixit and yet another scorching victory by Nascar man of the moment, or even several moments, trenchtownbilly. I want some of those pills his doctor prescribes, a big box please.

The absence of the usual two FLBT heavyweights from the class meant that ProMod could make do with a single final this time. MBR reigned supreme by one awesome™ heck of a margin as the only man with equalish machinery, cryer-evo, seemed to be having mechanical problems. Woodcote, after a decent qualifying, seemed to lose his way in the final to finish behind sonofroll1later.

The Mod class saw cross-classer redlineracersdad narrowly triumph over stonemanpj. This didn’t affect the table but slowracer’s fifth place enabled him to jump to second in the championship above fixit. Strange though that fixit chose to run Nascar for the first time this season, as any level of finish in Mod would have given him second place in the championship ahead of slowracer as there were no dropped scores.

FLBT were firm favourites to take the club crown for the second consecutive year and rolled out extra large and small drivers in the shape of roblees together with marctownsend’s two boys just to make sure. This should surely provide enough of a backstop should the wheel fall off the regular’s wagon, or the regulars fall off the wagon. In the end it was a comfortable win for FLBT overall ahead of hosts for the day, WHO. At the (non trophy) presentation roblees, in true ‘we want something to show off’ style, promised that FLBT would provide a cup. That will look very nice in the space shortly to be vacated by the 6-hour trophy then…….

F1 has always denied that there are appearance rewards and EAHORC is the same. The nearest EAHORC gets is the Tyco (Flintstone) Cup won this year by the doggedly persistent Mega-G denier slowracer. Cynics, and many other people have started to refer to this award as the ‘Turn-up‘ Cup.
On the other hand the Minor championships, or the ‘don’t-turn-up’ cups, were won by robinracer, thechosenone, sonofroll1later and the absent, much respected spiritlodger. Very well done. How about a full season next year?

Best Rookie was a worthy, as predicted in my first blog, thechosenone, but with an earlier start to the season cryer-evo could just as easily have been the grinning trophy winner.

Once again the Mussel Bay Posse (I think that’s the right spelling) arrived in time for the presentation part of the proceedings in order to see their pin-up, MBR, having his usual shiny stuff returned for another years dusting.

Driver of the day?
MBR is always in the frame for this and rightly so but I always try to give someone else a look in if possible, otherwise it’s even more boring. Trenchtownbilly was an equally strong contender this time for extending his winning streak with another heats and final out-front performance but I’m going to give it to marctownsend for getting the closest anyone has got to MBR this season in a head to head full-on pace F1 A-final with an absolutely stunning performance. Keep it rolling mt, while the crowd loved it, the kids didn’t even notice.

Driver of the season?
Yet again MBR led the EAHORC cup from almost the first meeting to very last. This has allowed him to wear the EAHORC cup blue leader’s jersey at every meeting from the second onward, not to be sneezed at. As we all know MBR puts an awful lot into making sure his equipment is as good as it can possibly be. (apparently as long as you spend less on slot cars than the missus spends on hairdos, clothes and make-up it’s legal, but I’ll leave you all to argue the point individually) That’s part of the reason for the MBR record of success; the other is that at the moment, he is genuinely a unique talent within EAHORC. It’s a joy to watch an on song MBR. At the start of each race he takes just a couple of laps to settle in, set the aircon to ‘chilled’ and tune the Blaupunkt to Radio Sugar Beet FM (in refreshingly retro mono), before casually disappearing off into the distance…. But (there we go again) laurels are not for resting on and with cryer-evo, thechosenone and others lapping up experience like Johnny Vegas does Guinness the gap will certainly narrow. We musn’t of course forget sonofroll1later, trenchtownbilly, the reborn andyslots and the dad who we know can on very occasional occasions genuinely beat MBR on pace, marctownsend, EAHORC Cup runner-up. Next season will be a blinder, be part of it.

A season’s worth of thanks to the management, host clubs and drivers. Not forgetting of course the Saturday set-up pixies that make it happen. Don’t kill them thechosenone, you need them!

What more can I say? Quite a lot really, but I’ll save that for the next time…...
Now the closing credits…..

Credits

Gaffer: motherhen1

Electrician: andyslots

Best Boy: sonofroll1later
Best Boy Grip: redlineracersdad
Best in Show: thechosenone
Best of Breed: MBR

Dolly Jockey: thechosenone

Sound Bloke: marctownsend

Stunt Co-ordinators: Jimb0 and thechosenone

Costume Designer: spiritlodger

Set Designer: montoya1 (and it is pretty much a set design)

Child Wrangler: marctownsend

Mr cryer-evo’s hair products supplied by Autoglym Ltd
Mr thechosenone’s hair styled by a strong north wind
Mr Jimb0’s specialist safety wear by ‘Bats, boxes and balls’ of Windsor

Make up by Walter Plinge
Maid up? by Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Cameraman: woodcote
Assistant cameraman: andyslots
Film editor: andycaen
Slow motion equipment provided by The Tyco Corporation

Overseas negotiations: nicorosberg

Ernie Becclestone was played by montoya1
Moses Maxley was played good and proper

Sting appears courtesy of Walter Plinge

No animals were harmed in the making of the films but one or two nuts were inadvertently crushed.

Montoya1 is a division of the EAHORC Corporation.

All references to persons living or dead are completely outrageous.
__________________________________________

Walter Plinge

For those on Twitter and Facebook I am on Slotforum
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EAHORC HO Grand Prix, Gaydon, 21 May 2011
Walter Plinge presents the alternative view

So how did EAHORCs big day out go?
Here’s how…..

Arriving at Gaydon my Satnav said carry on down the road, but the sign said left. Left I went to be faced in the distance by a flat cylindrical object reminiscent of the alien craft in ‘Independence Day’. Was this the museum building, an alien invasion or the new mode of transport of Gareth, thechosenone? It turned out to be the building, despite the whole site having a ‘nothing in the middle of nowhere’ Area 51 feel about it. To see how the confusion arose see the tourist board style still photo at 3:14 into the more than excellent woodcote ‘HO:GP’ vid on the EAHORC HO:GP thread, page 12. Also available on the interweb at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ZAOFRdWSY

Surprisingly, although running a public track. EAHORC members were asked to pay for entry to the museum site. No reflection on EAHORC but how bizarre: doing someone a favour and having to pay to do it? Walter wasn’t over-chuffed with this. Fair play to the EAHORC administrative staff though who had arranged for a discounted entry rate. Unfortunately group tickets are designed for coach parties and the like who naturally all arrive together, and the small print (always read it!) required it. This meant getting all of the HOGP entrants in front of the venue at a planned 0900hrs, precisely. But was this really a requirement of the ticket or was there more to it? Rumours abounded that this could be a pre-race fitness test, a means of ensuring the same practice time for all or to ensure that the younger generation got the best pit space. My money was on it being a practice for the AFX 6 Hour to be held at Pinewood Raceway in July. This year organiser andyslots is believed to be secretly planning a Le Mans style start to the race with the chequered flag being waved on the grass outside the nearby Jayne Coleman Academy of Dance at precisely 1000hrs.

But (never start a sentence with ‘but’: Year 7), back to Gaydon, there was a last minute change of plan as the Saturday setup fairies were going to be allowed in early ‘round the back guv, but don’t tell no-one’, without the need for a ticket, as they were now on the setterupper’s seemingly flexible guest list.

As the chimes of 9 approached the ‘just Sunday thanks’ people assembled with some arriving less early than others, but I refuse to name names as there is a super-injunction in place. (If you really want to know ask your MP) EAHORC supremo, motherhen1, was surprisingly cool, which was to be his mood for the day. Whatever the original plan for the standing start, if there was one, the fitter youngsters pushed ahead, leaving the more prosperous looking and those under doctor’s rather than starter’s orders to bring up the rear. The crocodile was snappy at the front but did give off a slight wheezing sound at the rear. Motherhen1 did not confirm or deny that there had been anything other than a ‘small print’ ticketing glitch.

The size of the track was again staggering. The long straight was not just long, it was really really, and I mean really long. I reckon that the straight was, when scaled up, equivalent to about 1/3 mile which would no doubt give the residual Tyco 440 breathing difficulties while the accordion section next to ‘Tony’s Bygones’ might be the Mega-Gs undone shoelace. No doubt in anyone’s mind though that this was going to yet another AFX Racemasters day. Yes, the track was not just awesome™, it took awesome to the next level™.

Those who read my first blog may remember my plea for a greater range of liveries in order to aid car identification as they zip around the small plastic planks that is HO. That plea appears to have been, at least in part, answered. As widely rumoured on Twitter both woodcote and asjwood turned up with new open wheel paint jobs. Marctownsend appeared with a clever, more than bright, yellow champcar with the latest Austin Powers Penske Pattos attached, with matching hubs front and back (creep). With all the new paintwork to badge up Patto must surely have been able to put a fair amount into his pension fund this month. The real head turners, or eye burners, but not necessarily the prettiest, by a smidgen, were the vaguely Ferrari fluorescent pinky/reddy things of cliveharland and redlinercersdad, which were so bright their curves and edges could hardly be seen. Despite them being smaller than the standard Panoz, the Super-G and Tyco bodies could surely be visible from nearby planets. All I can say is that the FLBT duo and redlineracersdad’s cars must have been painted with the aid of a welders mask. From the same stable perhaps? Thanks boys, it’s a great start, and we’ll see a few more.

The morning was taken up with the HO:GP. The influx of some great new racers and the advent of Martech kit has put far more people in reach of doing well. The difference between being almost top and near the bottom is small and narrowing all the time, with drivers knowing that 2 ½ good heats just isn’t good enough to get them where they think they should be. Winning one final and moving up is about all that can be expected as the second final will always be in the worst lane. Many people paid the price.
MBR deservedly retained the GP title but cryer-evo who was always in the frame came second. Third was second qualifier woodcote, a very creditable consistent morning for him that paid dividends. Fourth was thechosenone who had, against the run of form having qualified sixth, moved up from the B-Final, leaving a disappointed fourth fastest qualifier marctownsend in sixth place behind an impressive and pleasantly surprised stonemanPJ.

In the afternoon ProMod class where speeds are phenomenomenomenal, the bright body had been surprisingly less common. However we now have marctownsend, cryer-evo and cliveharland bucking the trend with bright yellow lexans, some brighter than others. MBR does not need to rely on bright colours: he just needs to keep his eye on the fastest car, but is the Martech empire about to strike back? Will the lucky blue shirt take a tumble in the tumble dryer? Wash this space.

Jimb0 however wishes that cars were clockwork powered after a blue unguided missile took off at the end of the runway hitting him in the KPs. Fortunately, for whatever reason, no serious damage seems to have done, and no charges will result. Bet he was only too pleased to show off the bruises when he got home! Was it end bell first jimb0?

Expect wicket keepers gloves and box to be provided at the end of the straight next time. See the woodcoteagain vid ‘HO:GP extras 1’ on page 12 of the HOGP thread or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK9Vyay8UIg...eature=youtu.be

New boy cryer-evo had threatened to arrive in true racing style by giving his Mitsevo a blast from Brissle to Gaydon but unfortunately the clutch gave up the ghost before the off. The news that the engine was no longer shaking hands with the gearbox leaked out in advance which fortunately enabled garages en-route to cancel their extra fuel deliveries in plenty of time. His performance on track in only his second EAHORC outing must be on track to suggest a major upset on track in the not too distant future and I’ll be tracking this. With a second place in the GP and a close third behind MBR and marctownsend says a lot. One of the people to watch next season.

Slowracer, by racing his Tyco in the GP and gaining the maximum 20 points from a surprising 20th place finish has pretty much sealed the Flintstone Cup although crashatallcorners and spiritlodger can still mathematically top him.

Andyslots was having a bit of a nightmare through being away from the big track action, resulting in 14th place in the GP, immediately behind motherhen1.
Motherhen1 had a great performance in Nascar, coming second only to the on form of late trenchtownbilly despite having to use a replacement chassis. Fast up and coming whippersnapper thechosenone also benefited from andyslots distractions relegating him to fourth in the tin-tops.

Where Motherhen1’s cluck was in, andyslots seemed to be out today. Conspiracy theories abounded in some parts of the pits that the consigning of andyslots to the demo track for most of the day was a deliberate act designed to make him underperform. Deliberate or otherwise this now means that the Nascar championship will be decided at the last round at WHO potentially teeing-up a jaw-dropping A-Final. Any one of three drivers can realistically, not just statistically, win but with andyslots in joint top spot and dropping a zero he must be favourite to take the chromeware over motherhen1 and trenchtownbilly, despite their better recent form. While thechosenone cannot win the title he is easily capable of getting amongst it to spoil someone’s day. Surely a capacity crowd can be expected!

The Mod class was down to 3 today, stonemanpj, jimb0 and slowracer. Nothing too exciting here with them finishing in that order.

Due to marshalling and other things I only managed a short visit to the out of town mall and other tracks. There I found some great shops with some fantastic new and pre-owned cars and spares at bargain prices, like nothing I’d ever seen before, but no time to buy. Didn’t get anywhere near the museum though before the motherhen1 string started tugging away to show that my next marshalling stint was due.

We don’t see the real speeds that the ProMods of capable of very often but this was just one of those days, to the great joy of drivers and visitors alike. Just imagine what they would be like with more amps per lane to play with!
ProMod had a C-Final for a change with redlineracersdad beating new boy rossi25rc to move up to the ‘B’ joining sonofroll1later, woodcote and surprisingly, cliveharland who despite having A-Final lap pace had mechanical problems in all of his heats. His woes continued in this race missing several laps with gear issues to finish seventh behind redlineracersdad and sonofroll1later with a deserving woodcote (it’s getting a habit) getting another ProMod A-Final. That eagerly awaited A-Final did not disappoint with MBR disappearing into the distance less than usual with a seemingly determined marctownsend hanging on well. When the prospect of dethroning the king was beyond reasonable doubt marctownsend eased off to Warp Factor 7 for safety giving cryer-evo an opportunity to close in, lap after, for marctownsend, excruciating lap but held on to second place by a whisker. The crowd, quite frankly and understandably, got a little excited. A great race that just might have won EAHORC a few converts.

Walter and his mates have been running an unofficial, and discreet ‘best t-shirt’ competition between devotees of the garment, thechosenone and asjwood, who both always make an alternative statement. The competition started last month at Kesgrave. Asjwood had on that occasion gone for a very subtle ‘I quite like music’ worded strike against the branding system. The messianic choice was a direct message of having a ‘loving’ choice between a Ford Mustang and someone elses (thank goodness) mother. Messiahs are somewhat known for their directness.
This time asjwood crossed into thechosenone’s ‘sex and car’ territory by wearing a winged car on his shirt with the slogan ‘nineteen 69’. Thechosenone sidestepped asjwood, together with the usual hanger in the wardrobe, by deciding to wear the black ‘subliminal message’ model from his messianic collection. To the casual observer it was simply a branded shirt (now reduced I see from £14.99 to £24.99 for two, but who would want two?) with the once trendy makers name ‘O’Neill’ emblazoned across the chest. To those, like myself, who are susceptible to suggestion it was a misspelt invitation to kneel, an instruction worthy of the Messiah himself, the cheeky so and so. Now that the competition is out in the open I’m expecting an end of season T-shirt spectacular from these two. Don’t let me down boys!

So who was worthy of an ‘in summary’ mention?
Unluckiest driver: cliveharland who had mechanical problems in all his races (buy the workshop manual mate). I expect he’ll be back though.
Luckiest driver: jimb0 who escaped serious injury with, or by, a short head.
‘Spoilt day’ driver: andyslots who was stuck on the display track almost all day, resulting in a much below par performance on the big track and the loss of a shout at sealing the Nascar title. Shame as his form of late had been great and getting better…
Race of the day: ProMod A-Final, by a mile, unlike marctownsend’s margin.

Finally Driver of the day?
Could it be one of the top ProMod three finalists, MBR for winning, marctownsend for keeping cryer-evo at bay, or cryer-evo (aka thecheshirecat) for oh so very nearly doing it and smiling all the way?
No, it was trenchtownbilly who after a disappointing HO:GP bounced back to win another gruelling Nascar A-final by over a lap and almost half a second faster than his rivals, making it three wins out of the last four outings; neat!. All this against a backdrop of a driving ban from the doc after a recent malady. Well done ttb, we love ya!

Did I mention slowracer?

Walter Plinge

For those on Twitter and Facebook I am on Slotforum
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Welcome to the first of my blogs: an alternative to the usual reporting….

I was extremely impressed that all drivers (and those simply seeking directions) were greeted at the Kesgrave scout hut venue by ECHO CEO and general factotum, Julian_Boolean (is this name true or false?). Unfortunately this was only to advise that parking was elsewhere, although thankfully reasonably adjacent. I’m looking forward to valet parking and complimentary car wash with hot wax rinse next time at the very least.

That said the venue itself was magnificent, spacious, light and airy, so typical of the architectural style of the “Millennium Grant” period. Well done Julian_Boolean (There’s a maths joke in the name somewhere but I just can’t work it out) for providing this gem. If only it could become a permanent venue… The track was, well, long. Using most of the EAHORC track and more besides it really was AWESOME (Word in capitals acknowledged as trademark of montoya1). Eclipsing even the mighty FLBT bridge track at the last round in Marlborough it provided good visibility and had surprisingly low marshalling requirements. Good job done by Julian_Boolean (concept and design) ably assisted by montoya1 (quality control) who must have worked late into the evening to get it all finished, with Snoopy’s b**lock surviving the final edit.

There was talk during the day that many of the bodies look the same. The prime example was the Promod A-Final with three fifteen stoners on the rostrum together with woodcote who had clearly eaten many fewer pies. I jest of course; the bodies were of course car bodies, particularly F1. There has been many a grid comprising three or more Aussie Vineyards Austin Powers Mega-Gs or one of the other early liveries. In the old days it was four Ferraris. We now have several new EAHORC legal fantasy variants available from AFX, including the Full-Tilt, Pro One and Hornet F1 clones. MBR Martech are also producing paint jobs for all classes (take a look at the Camel Lotus Honda of marctownsend) and I’m told another team will be painting bodies to order very soon. So help those with poorer eyesight than yours, not with a donation, but by racing with a body that looks a little different.

Now to the racing itself.
The F1 races have been a bit topsy turvy of late. Those who were used to getting into an A or B final are now finding it much harder work. Great stuff this competition, it’s what we need more of! This has been exacerbated by MBR in the guise of Martech supplying race ready Mega-Gs to quite a few of the drivers on the grid since the last round. We all know MBR can produce a great car when many others fail, and if the results are anything to go by (three out of four A-finalists), this was money well spent by his new customers. For those without Mega-Gs this really is the place to get going. (Other shops are available).

Another landmark F1 win for MBR (how many in total montoya1?), followed by andyslots, Gareth and stonemanPJ. No A-final places though for main grade leaders roll1later (dad of redlineracer) or redlineracer (son of roll1later). They both face interesting challenges in trying to win Main Grade without being promoted to Premier status in the process. Would love to be a fly on the wall in that household between now and the end of the season. Will mrsroll1later (redlineracersmum) take sides?

Promod as usual, but he can’t take it for granted, was won in awesome™ style by MBR. The boys behind were in a different order again with cliveharland regaining form in second followed by Brighton resident woodcote (43) making another impressive step forward. Marctownsend was fourth after beating roll1later in the B.

A slightly predicable top three in the undetermined Nascar championship: the
top three contenders , with trenchtownbilly taking his second win of the season.

The Mod class this year has been dominated by redlineracer, with only Fixit keeping him off the top step this season, and then only once. But it was only today that redlineracer was crowned champ, as well as taking the A-Final win, from, you guessed it, Fixit.

So who was the driver of the day? Was it going to be the usual suspect MBR who was as flawless as ever winning morning and afternoon, or redlineracer who confirmed himself as Modified champion? Well, er, no. For my money it was Gareth. Fairly new to EAHORC and all things HO he really has got to grips with ‘things’ impressively quickly. Third in F1 (admittedly with a Martech) and fourth in closed wheel in only his third meeting, beaten only by those battling it out for overall Nascar championship supremacy tells it’s own story. I believe we have witnessed the second coming. The beard and stature provide hints of the Messiah but for absolute confirmation see the andyslots video 3:00 to 3:05 on the race thread to see the glowing aura around the being that is Gareth, the chosen one.

I can’t go without mentioning slowracer.

Watch out for my next blog. In future editions, as well as race reports I will be ‘flossing the goss’, interviewing drivers, visiting a team technical centre as well as asking ‘why has pancake day been moved from Shrove Tuesday to South Cambridgeshire?‘.

Walter Plinge

For those on Twitter and Facebook I am on Slotforum
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