Sometimes my test track bites my bum in the shape of making cars look great during testing, but when they get on the club track they're all over the place and I experienced this phenomemon (yes I had to look the spelling up) when it came to the first class.
I had picked Scalextric Group C (with permitted mods) because they seemed great around my test track. It didn't start off too bad with a second place finish, although my re-painted green and yellow Jaguar seemed to have a SCX like affliction in the shape of the motor getting faster as the race wore on. Unfortunately in my next race I launched my 'Liqui Moly' 956 off when trying too hard too soon to record one point. My noisy 'Michelin' Sauber gave me another second place finish in my third race but the developing sequence continued in my fourth race when my 'FromA 956 spun into the tree line to post one point. Spookily my re-painted 'Pepsi Challenger' 956 gave me yet another second place finish by dint of everyone else falling off! Then I spoilt my sequence when I raced my Jaguar again and it fell off for two points. So a pretty s**t performance really, which accounted for my finishing seventh out of eight with a paltry 19 points. Going great guns however was Jim who posted his joint best score on the night of 32 with five wins and top of the class. He ran away from the rest of us with his black Jaguar. The rest of us were all very close with PJ next up running a quick 'Kenwood' 956. He took his best score on the night of 24 points which included a win, which in true PJ form should have been a lot more. Third place with 22 points was Mr Consistent, in the shape of Will, running a club 956 (or perhaps it was borrowed from Keith). Getting the other two race wins was Keith with a 956 who ended up tied on 21 points with Wes who was running a red and white Jaguar. Just one point behind them, also with a red and white Jaguar was DaveH. Trigger trailed in at the back. So if you ignore Jim it was a tight class!!
'Raid' was next up and I borrowed a club Pajero and amazed my self with how great it was compared to my Group C cars. A win, three second places and two altercation with Wes gave me my best score on the night of 25 points. Wow. It should have been more but in my third race I was neck and neck with Wes all race but on the last lap he punted me off so a possible first became fourth. In my last race Wes managed to 'get me' sooner and I was first off for one point. This really was a tight class with five of us recording race wins. Keith came out on top with two wins and 28 points. Jim and DaveH both took two wins and tied in second place on 26 points, this being Dave's best score on the night. I was one point behind them of course. Wes took the final win (when he knocked me off no doubt) and fifth on 22 points just ahead of Will on 20. PJ and Trigger were a little bit behind but there was some great racing going on in this class.
At the break it was Jim on 58 points from Keith 49, DaveH 46, up from 6th and ME on 44 having hauled myself up from 7th after the first class.
I had to borrow a club car for the next class, BMW M3 and despite what Will was saying in practise, I wasn't convinced at all that it was the best one to have. I started off with a second place finish but it went all downhill from there. The thing vibrated like mad which at first i thought was caused by a torn rear tyre. That got changed but the one I put on from another club car was completely different again. Another change didn't really help and then in my fifth race my controller lead broke and I had to use a club controller. It was all pretty torrid which probably accounted for my two last place and two fourth place finishes and just 17 points. Keith had no such problems as he took four wins on his way to the class win with 31 points running a SCX ALMS BMW M3. Proving they were the car to have in the class on this night was Wes who came second on 29 points which included two wins with his SCX M3. This also gave him his best score on the night. Will took third, with what turned out to be the best club car, with 24 points, his best score on the night. DaveH had another good run to 23 points and somewhat amazingly was four points clear of PJ who took the last two race wins! Another somewhat amazing performance was Jim's, who for some reason only just beat Trigger 13 - 12, this being Trigger best score on the night. The SCX ALMS BMW M3 was IT and I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more turning up in due course. At the end of this class, Keith had taken the lead, Wes had rocketed up to second, Jim was down to third and I had slumped to sixth.
We finish with 1600 Hatch and this is strictly for two wheeled driven cars. In practise my previously very competitive Ninco Clio was a bit 'jumpy' so I started with my Scalextric Mini. It's definitely a midfield runner as two thirds and three fourth place finishes testified. I did try my Clio but it rattled round to a third place finish as well. This class was all about Keith and Jim who were light years ahead of the rest of us. They took all the wins, four each and their best scores on the night 33 and 32, this being Jim's second 32 point finish. Jim was running a Scalextric Mini but unlike mine it's a proven very quick and stable runner. Keith's class winner was a SCX Skoda. Will was a distant third on 23 points from DaveH on 22 and me and Wes tied on 21 points. Even further back were PJ and Trigger.
At the end it was Keith on 113 points from Jim 103, Wes 93, DaveH 91, Will 89, ME 82, PJ 65 and Trigger on 36 points. Only another four rounds to go!

Yes, it was that time of year again when the Bolwextric club racers gave up their regular sprint racing for the long one, the really long one, the Bolwextric 12 Hours. This year we managed to put together four teams, two of four racers and two of three racers including the visiting "NSCC" team. The teams were:-





As ever it's far too much to give a blow by blow account so I will hopefully try and capture the highlights.
Peter Solari had provided the cars in the shape of Ninco anglewinder Porsche 997 GT3s complete with an additional Ninco lighting system fitted in. The cars turned out to be surpringly quick and drivable barring accident damage. By the third hour Saga Sport had decided to hot-glue the motor in and this really seemed to improve the car for us. So much so that in the fourth hour we were the first team to break the 300 lap mark when we recorded 303.1 laps. With the addition of the lighting system in the cars we ran four hours (hours 5 to 8) in darkness or near enough darkness. After an initial 'getting use to it' phase, which for Jim lasted for as long as it took to getting off the start line, everyone pretty much got back up to the same speed as before. I'm please to report that Saga Sport won the 6th hour segment with 302.9 laps.
At the six hour mark the positions were as follows:-

This reflects the fact that Wacky Racers hadn't stopped at all for adjustment/repairs of any kind. Numpties had stopped for a lighting installation problem, Saga Sport had stopped for the above mentioned motor 'hot-glue' and NSCC had never raced on the track before. All these are just excuses of course because Wacky Racers just got on with the job of piling on the laps.
They continued to pile on the laps with "Rosie" (their name for their car!) in the second half as well which was just as well because Numpties put in some really hot, consistent lappery, which saw them over-haul Saga Sport and get to within 20 laps of the leaders by the end of the 12 hours. That sort of lappery saw both DaveL and Keith consistently putting in sub 10 second laps. In the end Keith set the fastest lap and therefore the record for the race of 9.89 seconds. As for Saga Sport, our fortunes changed after one too many collisions with crashed cars on our lane upset our lighting system which we were slow to rectify and didn't properly sort out in a pit-stop. It needed another one to glue it in place but the car never felt the same again (HONEST CHAPS!). We even took the route of fitting the option tyre (Ortmanns) in the 10th hour which we soon realised didn't offer any real improvement. In fact we lost the slide-ability of the Ninco tyres and the handling was never really comfortable.
So at the end of 12 hours it was:


I thoroughly enjoyed it and as an added bonus we raised £168 for two charities.

I have to confess that this conversion isn't getting along very quickly. Well to be honest, it must have been about a year since I last did anything, but I have rushed out and done a bit of work lately. This was inspired as much as anything by the fact that I've just chosen one of the classes in the next series of the No Name Racing Club, namely Scalextric Group C cars (with permitted modifications).

I've worked on the air intake ducting which has quite a noticable hump on the Aston compared to the Scalextric Jaguar XJR donor car I'm using. This was built up with a mixture of milliput, Humbrol model putty and then finished off with a 'blast from the past' idea from absolutely years ago, a very fine putty made from Talcum powder and varnish. I've given it a quick spray of white primer to see how it all looks. It needs a little more work to get the shape just right and when that's done I need to get on and do something with the sidepods.

We were missing all three of the Dave's from the last round of the first series which meant there were only seven starters and it turned out to be a roller-coaster trip for me.
We started as usual with SCX F1 and in my first race I had a terrific race long duel with Jim's Ferrari which was only resolved right on the line when I just pipped him by 1/10th of a second. Unfortunately in my next race I had Keith sitting beside me on the grid with his identical black Lotus Renault. At the start of the second lap PJ spun off and collected 'my' Lotus; except it wasn't and I then came off at the starters hairpin with realising it. I then took a third, a last, a second and another last place when I was "Wes'd" at the first corner. So a win and a second place and some duff scoring saw me down in fifth place on 20 points. One point ahead of me was Wes getting his best score on the night running a BMW Sauber. Ahead of him by one point was Will, also running a BMW Sauber, the wingless front version. Keith was in second place with two wins on 26 points with his Lotus Renault. In top place with four wins and on 31 points was Jim and his Ferrari. One point behind me was Tony running yet another BMW Sauber and bringing up the rear was PJ. He has a very fast Renault and always streaks into the lead but somehow always manages to fall off. He could have been the runaway winner of this class with some more consistency.
My choice of class is next, the Open Prototype (Open) and I started with my RAA Spirit Dallara which took a runaway win. It was a bit closer in my second race with my Rollcentre Dallara but a another win followed. For my third race I was pacing myself against Tony's fast but noisy Fly Chevron with my Scaleauto Radical until he had a big off and I ran out a comfortable winner. In my fourth race I was back in my RAA Dallara against a hard charging Jim Fly Chevron when he spun off as we came onto the start straight and I 'bulldozed' him straight into a bit box! I ran out with my fourth win. I ran my RAA Dallara again in my fifth race to another race win but it all changed in my last race. I was running my Scaleauto Radical again and straight away I was having a problem on the sweeping last bend as for some reason my car was losing power. I thought at first it was the re-occurance of an old problem where this particular car had cut out on me in round one and DaveH in round four. However, as the race wore on, it became apparant that I had a controller problem so I had to settle for a second place finish behind Jim. The perfect 36 score alluded me but I did run out in top place on 35 points with five wins and my best score on the night. I was also well ahead of second place man Keith who didn't score any wins at all with his Fly Porsche 917 Spyder (I must admit I always thought it was a 908) but did collect 24 points. Tied in third place on 22 points were the two other race winners, with one race win apiece, Jim and Tony with their Fly Chevrons. Wes, with a Fly Ferrari 512 Spyder beat Will's Fly Chevron home 17 - 15 which left PJ at the back with his Slot.It Ferrari 312. This is another car of his which doesn't realise it's full potential as he spun off far too often when well place or in the lead! What's more it has been a race winner.

At the break I had bounced up from fifth to first on 55 points from Jim 53, Keith 50 and Tony 41.
We start again with WTCC and I worked out during that class that I had to keep my controller hand still and not 'wave' it around to minimise my controller problem. I was back on my SCX BMW M3 as I will using it again in the next series. Well it's a good midfield runner if I don't get 'pinged' off but I did at least end up as the 'real' Andy Priaulx. WTCC is for some reason very much a Honda Accord class which is borne out by the top three places taken by the three Honda runners. Tony and Keith took all the wins, for for Tony and three for Keith but ended up tied for the top spot on 33 points. Ten points behind them in third place with the other Honda was Will. All three of them took their best scores on the night. Jim came in fourth running a Volvo (yes, not strictly WTCC but hey) on 20 points and I followed him on 16 points. At least I was ahead of Wes who managed to knock me off twice in his quest to be the 'real' Andy Priaulx with his SCX BMW M3 but only scored 11 points and tied with PJ and his Seat Leon in last place. At the end of this class I had bounced down to fourth with Keith up from third to first.
We end the night with 1 litre Saloons and I'm quite glad we're finished with them as I struggle with my Revell NSU. Bizarrely I started quite well with two third places and a second but a last and a fifth followed until I ended the night with a third place and 20 points. Runaway leader however was Jim with his Fiat Abarth, which he took to a perfect score of 36 with six race wins and obviously his best score on the night. Quite a way behind was Tony on 24 points who took the other race win with his Scalextric Mini which really went when he had poured some 'comm' drops on the motor. Two points behind him was Keith on 22 points with his Renault 8. Remarkably tied in fourth spot on 20 points were me and PJ both running Revell NSU's. This was PJ's best score on the night with quite a much quicker version which suffered from PJ's familiar malaise; STAYING ON! Bringing up the rear, Will just beat Wes 13 - 12 with Wes's Mini not really benefitting from the 'comms' drop treatment at all.
At the end it was Jim who stormed up from third to take the top spot with 109 points from Keith on 105, Tony 98, ME 91, Will 73, Wes 61 and PJ on 51 points.

New classes coming up and an urgent need to sort out my controller problem before the 12 Hour Endurance race this weekend.

Well, we've lucked in here in the UK with the NASCAR Nationwide Series being shown live on MOTORS TV. I'm a bit of a fan of NASCAR although it's been hard work over the year's trying to catch some coverage of it! It's a different form of racing and yes, a lot of it is driving round in circles but they do it very fast. I do know they race on road circuits because when I was on holiday in the USA a few year's ago I did get to see the Watkins Glen round (on TV of course) which was quite different. My wife and daughters think it is all just 'follow my leader' until I tell them to pick a particular car and watch how it moves up and down the field. I do feel the racing is a bit contrived sometimes. For example I don't really understand why, when there is a caution flag, a lapped car can be waved by to get it back on the lead lap. You might just as well ban lapping cars and have everyone stacking up behind the last car. As for the arrive, start and park cars. Have NASCAR finally sorted this out because it still seems to happen and I thought they were going to get rid of them? Anyway despite any of my reservations it still great to see a NASCAR series live on TV.