Race results and report - 31st October 2024 - The A.G.M. followed by Formula Libre aka run-wot-u-brung

   


Tonight was the Annual General Meeting, originally planned to start at 7.45 but as we had a few absentees we started a bit earlier to enable us to have some racing afterwards.

As it turned out it was probably the shortest A.G.M. we’ve ever had, with very few proposals and no real changes.  Here’s the main points:

• Club membership and weekly fees are unchanged
  
• The Club Officers all offered to stand again and were voted in
  
• Saturday Scalextric Club will be one Saturday per month, we’ll get started then advertise it
  
• The NSR Mosler ‘Club Challenge’ will continue unchanged
  
• ‘Standard Class’ Rally is now ‘Back 2 Basics’
  
• Upgraded ‘B2B’ Rally cars (free choice of wheels, tyres, gears, guide, motor) is now ‘Standard Class’ 
  
• No change to Rally ‘ProStock’ and ‘Open’ classes
  
• The race calendar for 2025 will be decided by the committee over the coming weeks
  

After the A.G.M. we had a Formula Libre (run-wot-u-brung) race which saw Sports, GT’s and LMP’s for five minute heats.

   

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Next week is the NSR Mosler ‘Club Challenge’ #9 followed by Grand Prix and Prewing F1.

   


Following our dabbling in slot rallying this year and hosting the Slot Rally GB crowd at the Barn in July (see here), six of us - or seven, if Scott is wearing his WHO hat - are heading to Farnborough Scalextric Club today for the final round of the 2024 championship.

Armed with an eclectic mix of hastily-prepared cars - from bog-standard SCX and Ninco to fancy SRC, Avant and 3D chassied nonsense, we are truly up against the big boys who have been doing this for decades.

How will we get on? Will we even get there? Hopefully, all will be revealed later - with pictures and maybe a bit of video.

This Senna tribute livery from Pfaff Motorsports finished second in GTD Pro in this year’s IMSA race at Laguna Seca. NSR white kit with decals from mtr32.

               

Hello everyone…
We have just received confirmation from the municipality of Claira:
The FOLM DAKAR DANTAN 5 will take place on September 27 & 28, 2025 in the Polyvalente hall of this locality in the Pyrénées Orientales…
The various information, registration date and other details will be given to you soon but know already that there will be a lot of new features:
• Number, length and duration of the special stages
• Brand new timing of the weekend
• Number of vehicles to be entered per driver according to registrations
• Reorganization of categories
• Timing and reporting of times for real-time results
The whole thing is to make this edition a festive and sporting event with a maximum of drivers…
The organization on site will be managed by Vincent Piffaut (Siffert) and Laurent Bourdois (Lolo)…
And knowing them, there is no doubt that they will do everything possible to give us a superb edition…
François

   

Changes to our HO regs have been developed over the past 12-18 months. With some older chassis becoming more difficult to find and extremely expensive to buy a good one, we have shifted our focus to HO cars that are available new in the UK. Unfortunately, with the Micro Scalextric cars too wide for our AFX lane spacing, we are looking at the AFX Mega-G+, British-made Bulldog BDR and the Viper.

The changes come in slowly for January 2025, with a bigger shift for the 2026 season.

The key points for 2025 are...

• WHO Tuners becomes a Mega-G+ and Bulldog only class with hard bodies.
  
• WHO Mod becomes a Viper and Bulldog only class with lexan bodies.
  
• The Super-G+ has a 11mm minimum rear tyre height for both a last hurrah in Nascar and a longer-term future in F1.
  
• The Bulldog BDR (with bar magnet) is now legal in Nascar.
  
• F1 becomes the 'AFX Formula One Championship' with official support from Racemasters.
  
• Scrutineering will become a more regular feature of our F1 nights.
  

There are full details of the changes for 2025 and 2026 in this 5-page pdf brochure
Any questions, just ask.

   

We're back at the Barn for an evening of championship deciders. Starting with a mega-brief 5-minute AGM, we'll decide the Nascar title in 'normal time'. It is looking close at the top, with Pete in pole-position...

   

The result of the Nascar race will also have an impact on the extra race at the end of the evening - the Gen6 Cup Championship Showdown. That's a 2-minute race between the top 4 Gen6 racers, decided on race wins and then points. This is how the grid looks at the moment...

   

However, there are rumours that Deborah and Keith might not make it.

   

All the racing takes place on a layout inspired by the Watkins Glen short course, including the 'inner loop' created with two AFX chicane sets.

There was another flea market yesterday in Dungannon, Ontario. It was three hours drive one-way. Mostly HO cars and related parts.

Here's what I came back with.

   
   

Thank you very kindly for looking,
Ken

This may be of interest if you are in the area. Had a few days away in Wroxham, Norfolk and visited this place.  LINK

It has all sorts of toy related stuff - some very large model railway layouts, die casts, Lego, dolls houses etc. There is also what is claimed to be the largest fully automated Scalextric layout IN THE WORLD!

In actual fact it is four different layouts in one and quite why you would want an automated track is beyond me but it is impressive to watch. Incidentally they use NSR cars on the track because Scalextric ones proved too unreliable!


   

   

It’s time for another system diagnostic and fun project.

This time it’s a speed trap with large digital read-outs. 

The plan is a two lane system which reports car ID and transit speed as the cars pass the speed trap position.

Having worked on 0.2 inch (5mm) digital displays for 1/32 scale windscreens, it’s time to go bigger for track-side displays :)

c

     

ID detection, speed detection and large display readout to follow.