[woodcote]

   


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.

[woodcote]

   

In the end, there were five of us who made the journey up to Farnborough - Terry picking up myself, Mike and Phil at various stops along the A27, then heading up the A3; Jeremy taking a more direct route from Eastbourne. We all arrived in plenty of time at what turned out to be Gareth's old primary school.

   

As early birds, Jeremy, Phil and myself were in the first group of five to hit the eight stages - starting on the SCX Classic 'Snow Time'. It was a good one to start with, with the usual power issues for classic track and an occasionally glitchy Ninco timing bridge.

   

Terry's group  started on a neat little Scalextric Sport figure-of-eight. His Teamslot Renault 5 was still suffering the effects of our last event at the Barn and was retired on the start line - the organisers (of which one was in Terry's group) kindly supplied him a replacement.

Mike started his day - I think -  on the magnificent Farnborough Airport stage, of which more later. Although we spent the morning in close proximity to Terry's group, we didn't see much of Mike until lunchtime.

   

Phil had a beautiful quartet of cars that had seen action at the Barn, but they didn't seem to like the trip up north. It would later turn out to be his controller, which didn't want to play with the local wiring.

   

That first stage finished, it was time to rotate to any stage that was empty. We chose the routed 'Hill Farm', which is where Phil's - and Jeremy's - controller woes were finally diagnosed and they switched from their Truspeeds to basic Parma resistor controllers. Both now started to relax and enjoy their days.

   

Hill Farm was a very enjoyable stage, tricky to push really hard. A measured approach and avoiding too much tail-out action was the key to a good time. My Ninco Porsche didn't do badly...

   

One stage that we'd finish the day on, but grabbed our attention early, was the fiendish 'Gymkhana' - two boards of routed swirls, linked by a chute of multiple Classic Goodwood Chicane pieces. Both Mike and Terry's groups would get to grips with it before we did...

   

Our third stage was up some stairs out of the main hall into a lobby. Tucked in a corner by some external doors was the magnificent 'Mini Hill Climb'...

   

This shows what can be done with Classic track on a permanent layout, with any potential connectivity issues nullified by soldering every joint. The endless elevation and camber changes made the stage a challenge, but the power delivery was perfect, meaning it was possible to really attack the hill. The descent did require some caution. I absolutely loved it!

   

   

We returned to the hall for a fourth stage, which would take us to our halfway point. The 'Crate Loop' was in the corner of the room where all the track crates were stored for the temporary layouts...

   

The Ninco off-road surface was familiar from our WHO Jupp's Farm stage. There were added elevation changes thanks to the Ninco 'Dune' pieces (we do have some...) which made the loop even more of a challenge, especially for cars with limited ground clearance. Of my cars, the Ninco Porsche was the best over the rough stuff...

   

We could have taken our lunch break at this point. To be fair, we were all probably ready for a rest and some sustenance, but we continued with a fifth stage - the little Scalextric Sport figure-of-eight...

   

Our familiarity racing on Sport track should have made this one a very good stage for WHO racers! Having got safely through the necessary number of laps, it was time for a break until we felt fully-recharged and ready for our final three stages of the event.

[woodcote]

Lunchtime was a perfect opportunity to meet up and chat with the other racers, many of whom had been to the Barn in July. We swapped stories from the morning and discovered we'd finished five stages quicker than most groups had finished four. After a decent break and some well-needed fresh air, we continued...

   

First up was the 'Car Park' stage - a big featureless routed stage that sent the cars in various loops, down a long, bumpy straight and into a very tight right-hander. It was a challenge to get round without incident and an even bigger challenge to get round quickly...

   

Without any sighter laps, it was Jeremy who went first and essentially did a recce for the rest of us. We rotated drivers so each of us started at least one stage during the day, but Jeremy's first run was the first time most of us figured out the route of this one. He didn't do badly, even parking his car precisely in a parking spot at the end.

   

From the Car Park, we went to the Airport. With Farnborough Airport just down the road - and the sound of planes a regular feature of the day - this was a perfect stage with local flavour. It was a long, thin layout with a high-speed straight requiring precise braking into a tight right-hander. There were some tricky twisty bits on the return that caught us out too.

   

The detail on the track was great, complete with dozens (or maybe hundreds) of LEDs. It looked like the 2x4 foot modules could be linked up in a number of different ways - giving the option of smaller stages or the same size, but a different order. A really nice design and execution.

Our final competitive stage of the day was another long one - 'Gymkhana'...

   

One end of the track had elements of the car park - in that it was difficult to predict exactly where your car was about to go!

   

The other end had a clear route, including a clear perspex bridge which looked very futuristic, offset by some subtle desert scenics...

   

This was another stage where it was risky to push too hard, but you needed a decent amount of momentum through the loops and over the bridge. The stage ended with a trip through a raised box which saw a lot of cars caught out be some nasty camber going into the down slope...

   

After the five of us finished our runs, that was it for our group's slot rally...

   

I think we all enjoyed our day...

   

However, other groups were still running - Terry's five still had two stages to finish!

   

Terry ending up on the Airport with his four cars, the RS200 borrowed...

   

For us, it was a time to have a few more laps on some stages and take a few pictures...

   

Jeremy's cars had gone very well on most of the stages, although each had struggled on others. If he can fix that SRC Lancia S4, it's going to be a contender. Phil had enjoyed his day, but was wilting a bit in the afternoon. The same could be said of my two Ninco cars (or maybe it was just me?) - a good morning, followed by three below-par stages. In fact, the two SCX cars set my best times in the afternoon, but they'd had pretty average mornings. And that quest for consistency over the day is the beauty of a slot rally!

   

After waiting patiently for Terry's group to finally finish and the data to be sorted, it was time for the day's results and season's standings to be announced. With only the top tens of the 3 classes called out, we think there were two WHO entries - my SCX Fiat ninth in Classic and the Ninco Subaru ninth in Modern. Results will be published soon and I'll post them here.

Meanwhile, the championship podiums were shared exclusively between Phil, Seb, Alan, Gareth and John (who missed this last round), showing you have to be quick and attend as many rounds as possible to make off with the end of term goodies, kindly supplied by Staffs Slot Cars.

And that was the end of a cracking day. A very big thank you to the SlotRally GB organisers, to Farnborough Scalextric Club for hosting and to everyone who took part and made it such a friendly and enjoyable trip. Apart from Jeremy, that was the first Slot Rally awayday for the rest of us. We're keen to do more, so excited to hear there will be a 2025 SlotRally GB championship to look forward to, announced today on Facebook...

1. We will be running the championship again next year.
2. The three main classes of cars will continue.
3. The rules regarding the cars will not be changing.
4. The Top Scaley and Top SCX sub classes will be dropped. They will be replaced by one new class

Intriguing!

[BAracer]

Yes, it was a grand day out!

These unfamiliar rally stages are a tough nut to crack. Maybe in a couple more years we will have built up a some muscle memory for them. 6 x 8 different tracks makes for alot of variety over each season. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I think it might be better to focus on how your cars respond to your trigger finger, and then simply apply that knowledge to best get round whatever track is infront of you. Also, our group were true to the sport and didn't run any practice laps before the timed ones. This all added to the adrenaline rush as you plugged you controller in each time and meant you had to be a fast learner!

Glad it's being run again, but I think those two standard classes should have been kept as an incentive for us 'amateurs'...

Great branch of the hobby!

[Kevan]

A great report 

Standard cars take much more prep than the fully adjustable jobbies and is probably the reason they're not a popular choice...but I like the challenge.

It's great to hear SRGB 2025 is planned.

[woodcote]

Here are those results, starting with the overall...

   
   

Plus all three classes...

   

   

   

Click on the tables to make them bigger & readable.

Mark Dadson, is WHO's Mike Dadson, so that's a much better result than we thought!