Twelve hour race for charity

As tomorrow is almost upon us...

Dear race organiser, please confirm the following-

Venue = Bolwextric, (Manor Farm Raceway) in Manor Farm Yard;
Post code = PO8 0RN

Doors open = 8:30
Race Start = 9am
Race Finish = 9pm

Cars = Supplied
Throttles = ?

Number of Teams = 6
Drivers per Team = 3 or 4

Food/Drink available = ?

Entrance fee = ?

Hi Peter,

Going on past years we tend to take some nibbles for throughout the day and then order in from the local tame pizza/kebab shop in the early evening. Even though it's in a fairly small village there is a convenience store and three different takeaways well within walking distance. Tea/coffee & cans of Coke available in house.

It looks like there are 4 teams, possibly a fifth made up of "extras".

The "club" is a commercial venture so there are controllers available, 45ohm Parma (not economy, the next ones up).

I think £10 per head was mentioned, but not sure, so hopefully Dave will confirm.

Easy to get to - coming south on the A3, after Petersfield/Butser Hill/Queen Elizabeth Country Park take the next exit signed Clanfield, go round and over the A3 and follow the signs down into the village. In the village, the road bears round to the left, but before you do you will see the Rising Sun pub on your right. Take the right turn before the pub (North Lane) and go up just further than you can see from the junction. When you see the scrap Transit van on the right covered in Bolwextric graphics, you're in the right place.

If we do end up with just 4 teams, what do people think about just using the inner lanes and going round three times? It would stop the situation we had last time of a couple of the teams getting runs with no "neighbours".

Hi Peter,

I think Jim has covered most of it, but here goes with the rest of it.

I will be taking my own throttle as i'm sure most other will be, you don't have to use the house ones.

Venue and post code correct.

Time correct.

Cost; Last year was £30/team so if you had 4 in your team you got lucky. Which in hind sight seemed a bit unfair. So this year it is £10 / person.

I will also be taking nibbles and things to pick at throughout the day and would recommend this, one member of your team will be required to drive...obviously, and there is a rule that the 'waiting' driver has to marshal. If you are a team of 3 it doesn't give you much time or break if you have to go shopping.

Again, as Jim says 4 teams confirmed.
Hopefully we can get a last minute entry.

I'm with you Jim on the 4 middle lanes if we do only get 4 teams. Having said that there will be no Pete this year

I think that's about it. Can anyone add anything else?

Evening all.

All six Ninco Porsche 997s are ready for action with Ninco light kits installed. None have yet been on the track but all the lights have been tested.

I have left the original Ninco tyres on but do not have any spare sets. I had planned to fit Ortmann tyres which have been kindly donated by RS Slot Racing for this event - I suggest running standard first, then changing to Ortmann. Perhaps we can take a vote or make a decision in the morning.

I now have a full team of three drivers; Myself, Peter Simpson and Paul Yates. Thanks Mr.Simpson for stepping in at the eleventh hour! Does this mean there are FIVE teams or had you included me in the original FOUR?

OK, I'm off for some shut-eye before the big day!

- Peter

The end of a very tireing 12 hour race, but great fun, even though we only manage seond, thanks to everyone for coming and making it the event it was. Good to see some old faces, and new ones. Looks like Richard will be one heck of a racer when he grows up. In the words of Brucey. 'didn't he do well'
Well done to Jims' team, Whacky racers, for a lucky win.
Unlucky Nick and co 'Team Saga Sport' you had the unfortunate mechanical problems again. That's motor racing though.

Well done Andy, never really raced on the track before and was up to speed...eventually.
A review will be done soon....ish. I'm sure some photos will appear before that though. That's your cue Will.

Thankyou to Tony for the use of his track for the day, we raised £168 for the 2 nominated charities which this year were The Make A Wish Foundation and the Ian Rook memorial fund.

Another great day that just got even better when I got home in time to see Swansea beating City!

Big thanks to Peter for supplying the Ninco Porsches for us to race and to his team mates Peter and Paul for supporting our event.

Thanks to all the competitors for making it such a fun event that literally flew by.

Special thanks to my team mates for an excellent performance and particularly to Richard for showing an extremely mature approach to his driving and being a real team player. I think we will have to christen him Dickie Diamond from now on.

I'm sure many of you will have heard the saying "Fail to prepare and prepare to fail!"

Well, it's horsesh*t!

Out of the box racing rules!

Hi All

Yes, many thanks to everyone who organised and or raced especially not forgetting Tony who though he didn't race (I think he was sun bathing at the RC track) donated the use of his facilities including power for the cars ( and little smigin of megawatts for the heaters). Another really enjoyable stint of racing - and a special thanks for the "guest" team of Peter (who also supplied the cars) and crew, they had to cope with a massive learning curve as the only ones not on home turf - well done guys, I think if we did the same again next weekend you would be in with a chance.

Yes, I will do a web page but as ever, the more info, pictures, review.... any one would like to put here that I can blag the better. I do have a couple of picks including an image of the extensive data on the computerised white board, I haven't checked them yet but one camera took some video before the batteries went home ( I think I left it at the unit anyway) and the other that I took pictures with has a long dislike of producing good pictures from the unit, and was only present as a spare.

The team I was in, Saga Team Sport, came third after a catalogue of highs and lows, many thanks to team captain Nick and PJ - we learned a lot more along the way, better luck next time. There life in us old dogs yet.

I tend agree with Jim's "to not fiddle" moto, but in our teams case I think our downfall was not to stamp on a small problem as soon as it presented. Personally, I was to blame for not flagging up a problem with the car but trying to drive round it during my session rather than getting it sorted. This meant by the time we finally addressed things fully the rear tyres were pretty shot and we went for the options on the rear - this really didn't work and what started as a winning car ended the day as a lame duck.

A day of real racing, because it will be remembered for all the "what ifs".

Will.

QUOTE (Mr.M @ 12 Mar 2012, 09:04) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Out of the box racing rules!
So it came with working lights as standard, then?

QUOTE (Wambulance @ 12 Mar 2012, 10:53) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>- and a special thanks for the "guest" team of Peter (who also supplied the cars) and crew, they had to cope with a massive learning curve as the only ones not on home turf -

"massive learning curve..." now that's an understatement!!

Cheers Will and everyone else from the club that made us very welcome. That was my first experience of a 12-hour race and it was great - especially the night stages where I recorded some of my fastest laps!

Not an expert with the tweaks necessary to get the optimum performance from a car, I was happy to continue running "out-the-box". No regrets. I think the cars performed really well seeing as they completed 12-hours solid with all their bits & pieces still intact; no motor failures, cracked chassis or wheels falling off! (My apologies to the two teams that had tyres rubbing against the front lights I installed but hope this didn't spoil your race).

I think the Ninco Porsche 997 was a good choice for the event - The light kits looked excellent (even if I say so myself!) and I'm interested to hear opinions & feedback from those of you that took part.

Thanks again Bolwextric! Hope to see you again...

Peter

QUOTE (pressbutton @ 12 Mar 2012, 15:04) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>So it came with working lights as standard, then?

Possibly not, but our car came out of the box, onto the track and raced for 12 hours. The others used valuable track time to "optimise performance" of their cars.

We won.

Draw your own conclusions.

QUOTE (Mr.M @ 12 Mar 2012, 18:55) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Possibly not, but our car came out of the box, onto the track and raced for 12 hours. The others used valuable track time to "optimise performance" of their cars.

We won.

Draw your own conclusions.



Well done Mr.M and crew. Congrats. mate.
BTW, What car were you racing with?
Any photos?
I still have a stack from the 2011 12hmeet. Never did get to put them on line.

Thanks all for a great day, good time had. So near yet so far! Well thats racing for you i suppose.

Thanks Dave, got the hang of it in the end, shame it was a bit too little too late really. Just glad didnt suck too much over the day.

First 12hr event attended, mad day, but worth it.

Thanks for the use of your facilities Tony.

Good idea about the middle stint of the day, night session. Different but enjoyable.

It was only a new lap record for the 12hour, Andy, not for the club as a whole. I beat it tonight at club night in the Open Class. And it was Keith, not I, that set it. What is Pet's lap record??

Anyway lap records don't win endurance races. Boring, repetitive, monotonous, even robotic, consistant lap times do! And my team were best at those.

QUOTE (pressbutton @ 12 Mar 2012, 13:04) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>So it came with working lights as standard, then?
Just for the record, the cars had been powered up but not driven before the day to check the lighting kits worked, on the day the cars were un boxed and given a couple of laps just to check there were no dogs. They were all worked fine, so were re boxed and put in for the draw for the cars. So it is fair to say the cars were "out of the box" condition when they lined up at the start, if Jim's team never touched the car, that is an impressive car and impressive driving, I just wish Jim would stop banging on about it.

A picture on this page shows they had already collected a ghastly collection of coloured tape by the time they started. That page also has a snip of video from near the start, it features some old favourites such as cheeky lad looking at the camera and Wez sporting those significant sun glasses. Sadly due to a couple of "ripe" words I had to add some annoying backing music to mask the sound track, but you can still can the flavour of the good natured banter they went on till the end.

Lap record: We do have Peter (Pressbutton) shown on the website as holding that with sub 9.7 seconds. That has been on the site for years and I can't recall where that info came from.

Will.