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The Essex 24 Hours - Printable Version

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The Essex 24 Hours - woodcote - 5th-Jul-19

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I'm off to race at the Essex 24 Hours at GT Raceway this weekend. After a break of three years, the UK's only analogue 1/32 scale 24 hour slot car race is back. All six teams will be racing standard Racer Sideways Lamborghini Huracáns with handout motors and tyres, supplied by Gaugemaster.

The six teams lining up on the grid tomorrow at midday are:

GT Raceway
West London Scalextric Club
Worthing
Truspeed
Molesey Slot Car Club
Scuderia Vermicelli

The race starts at midday, lights go out at 10pm and daylight returns at 6am Sunday morning. Each team will spend an hour on each lane and rotate through all six lanes four times over the 24 hours.

I'll be racing on the Worthing team, the four of us race at either East Worthing Scalextric Club, WHO/digital or both. Three of us raced together in the Worthing Digital team at the DiSCA oXigen Le Mans 24 hours in April. To complete a triple crown of UK 24 hour endurance races in 2019, I'll be racing at the HO Le Mans 24 hours in Derby this November Time

With a bit of luck, you will be able to follow updates from WHO Racing on Instagram and Twitter over the weekend - look out for #essex24hours. I'll post up a report here when I return...

RE: The Essex 24 Hours - woodcote - 11th-Jul-19

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After practice, a thorough scrutineering session and a pre-race warm-up, the six teams were ready to race at midday-ish. Locals GT Raceway had a 4 lap lead over Molesey after the first hour, although Molesey had to deal with the trickiest of the six lanes - red. Instead of moving up a lane each hour, teams would spend four hours in the same lane before moving on. The Molesey quartet kept the pressure on GT Raceway until a poor fourth hour dropped them behind TruSpeed and into third, fifty-four laps adrift of the leaders.

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The race had already split into two battles - GT Raceway, TruSpeed and Molesey for the win, with West London, Scuderia Vermicelli and Worthing attempting to avoid the wooden spoon. The pace of the top three was similar - hourly scores in the 280s, 290s and occasionally cracking 300 laps. The others were more erratic, with their better scores in the 260s and 270s. However, a key factor in any endurance race is time off track. Molesey required brief repairs in the fifth hour and then TruSpeed started to slow in the sixth. Still in second place, the TruSpeed team cleaned the motor, but that had no effect. A motor change followed, but it would be Sunday morning before they rediscovered their early pace.

After six hours, GT Raceway held a very comfortable 90 lap lead over Molesey, TruSpeed were a further 52 laps back in third - 96 laps ahead of West London in fourth. Scuderia Vermicelli had suffered a broken motor mount and repairs had dropped them from fourth back to fifth - 44 laps behind West London and only 19 laps ahead of Worthing, who had struggled over the first quarter of the race.

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Into the evening and GT Raceway had stretched their lead to over 120 laps. Scuderia Vermicelli had more time off track and Worthing managed to slip through into fifth. The change of lanes after eight hours saw Molesey launch a fight back in brown, as GT Raceway stuttered with a slowing motor in yellow. By the time the lights went out at eleven o'clock, the gap between first and second was down to 76 laps. The gap back to TruSpeed was 116 laps, with West London a further 115 laps back in fourth. The battle for fifth saw Worthing take a 30 lap advantage into the night.

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The first hour of racing in darkness saw lap scores drop a little. However, drivers' and marshals' eyes were soon acclimatised and the pace increased. Worthing and Scuderia Vermicelli had a fabulous fight through the night, swapping places almost every hour and entering daylight with Scuderia ahead by just one lap. At the front, Molesey had hunted down GT Raceway relentlessly. As the final hour of darkness came to an end, the lead changed for the first time - Molesey taking a one lap advantage into the new day.

The light came back on just after four o'clock. The lead fluctuated between ten and twenty laps over the next four hours. Both TruSpeed and West London were sitting in no-man's land - no threat to the team in front and safe from those behind. Fifth place was still up for grabs, although another lengthy spell off track put Scuderia Vermicelli 78 laps adrift with four hours to go.

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I've raced in nine previous 24 hour races and have never witnessed such a close race for the win with four hours to go. GT Raceway took 12 laps out of the lead during the first hour, Molesey clawing back three laps in the second - giving a gap of four laps and two hours to race. The next hour saw a six lap swing to GT Raceway, giving them a crucial two lap lead going into the last hour. That final fifty-five minutes was a brilliant duel between team captains Graeme and Julian and their pace incredible after nearly a whole day of racing. As the power was cut for the very last time, GT Raceway finished a lap up - giving them a winning margin of three laps after 24 hours. Congratulations to Graeme, Ron and Keith on their victory and commiserations to Molesey for a fine comeback and just missing out at the end.

Official results

GT Raceway: 6527 laps
Molesey: 6524 laps
TruSpeed: 6227 laps
West London: 5791 laps
Worthing: 5607 laps
Scuderia Vermicelli: 5590 laps

RE: The Essex 24 Hours - dvd3500 - 11th-Jul-19

That is very close indeed!