Well, the three old codgers from the Southend Slot Racing Club survived the weekend in Paris and made it back to the safety of Essex a bit kna....d but in one piece.
At the all important cafe stop on the way down to Paris
The 6 Hour race was fun and the organisers provided 12 Slot it chassis fitted with Revell DTM kit bodies.
Our car as suplied before the start of the race.
In practice our car was running off the pace and despite checks no fault was obvious but we were content to qualify tenth as we weren't last and we were racing against some serious opposition with a home track advantage.
During the first couple of hours the car continued to misbehave and the problem wasn't solved until it stopped altogether and the problem was identified as a duff throttle - with a replacement from the organiser the car was immediately close to the race leaders pace and we enjoyed the next few hours mixing it with the others and enjoying the experience of the DAVIC system that allows you to slipstream a car and then switch lanes to nip down the inside of the car you're chasing.
The field in finishing order
The 6 lane track with DAVIC system performed well throughout.
The time passed very quickly and we finished tenth which despite the many laps lost due to our problems wasn't too bad, and as some of the racers and slot dealers had made special late reservations with a local restaurant we were able to finish the day with a meal and a beer.
The race was efficiently organised by Eric (sorry I can't remember his surname) and was great fun - which surely is the whole point of this hobby.
On the Sunday the hall was transformed into a very spacious slot swapmeet with a great range of traders selling everything you could think of and we parted with a fair number of Euros in the 3 hours we spent trawling the stalls before setting off back to the UK.
David
