[woodcote]

   

The start of the 2025 Slot Rally GB series took place in the quaint little edge-of-Cotswolds village of Ramsden, about 15 miles from the centre of Oxford...

   

After two hours of dual-carriageway and 15 minutes of country lanes, five intrepid WHO racers - Phil, Mike D, Jeremy, Terry and Andy - made it to the Ramsden Memorial Hall to be greeted by the Slot Rally GB crew of Phil, Seb and Alan, plus the smell of sizzling sausages and bacon...

   

Mike and Jeremy couldn't resist a visit to the phonebox...

   


Inside the main hall were six stages - three routed, two Ninco stages built for the day and the giant, modular Nobby's Nightmare...

   

Each entrant could run four cars across three class (a lot of SRC Porsche 914/6 GTs for Classic), plus there was the debut of the Avant Slot Challenge - Nissans outnumbering Mitsubishis and Mantas...

   

With cars checked over at Rally HQ, the Five were ready to get started...

   

Terry, Mike and Phil would race in a four, alongside a local Oxford club member. Jeremy joined a Nascot Wood / Abergavenny group of five. I was allocated to another five of me and four local hotshots - John, Wayne, Colin and Ian (aka Nobby - purveyor of the Nightmare stage and of the cooked breakfasts, lunch, teas and coffees, plus owner of Dave the dog).

[woodcote]

First up for us was 10 laps round the routed Ramsden Green stage. It proved a good shakedown, requiring a certain amount of courage with speed and precision braking on the tight corners...

   

Phil, Terry and Mike began on Nobby's Nightmare...

   

And Jeremy's gang on Wayne's World...

   

It soon became clear (the names should have given it away) that Nobby, Wayne, Colin and John were responsible for all of the stages on show. John had brought an impressive quantity of Ninco track and had built two very well thought-out stages, 'Ninco 2' being our next action after dispatching Ramsden Green...

   

8 laps on one lane - using both lanes would almost certainly have made marshalling tricky. Maybe I didn't push quite as I could, but four clean runs out of four was satisfying - and I really wasn't looking to compete with the locals on their home turf. Wayne and John were particularly rapid - and with a nice variety of cars (neither had a 914/6).

Next was Wayne's World, which was a fabulous little track - not much bigger than 6 x 2 feet (measured by my size-9s) - and leaving us all a bit dizzy after nine laps...

   

My SCX Suzuki was fun through the stage and the Ninco Porsche pretty quick. However, I had a disaster with the Subaru - a front wheel shed early and the rest of the axle following a lap or two late. Thankfully Mike had packed some superglue.

   

Our group were ripping through the stages at quite a pace and managed to squeeze in a fourth before lunch, although we did need to wait for Seb and Alan to finish...

   

This was the 'Ninco 1' stage which featured a mix of Ninco off-road (including a hill section) and ice track. These were familiar surfaces for us WHO racers, although the ramps up the hill are not something we've used yet. Six laps across both lanes (so 12 times round in total) was a challenge. Again it was the Subaru that gave be a headache here - I nailed the Suzuki, Porsche and Avant Slot Galant, but the big Ninco car needed absolute precision over the crest... and I fluffed it three times.

So that was lunch. All but one group had managed four stages. Nobby provided more bacon and sausages in the kitchen and we all compared notes from the stages. Outside, the village had stirred, but was still very quiet. Who knows what the locals made of our invasion of their rural idyll.

[woodcote]

Once our morning's times had been input into the Rally HQ laptop, we got started again - heading off to Nobby's Nightmare...

   

This was certainly the biggest of the stages and - at 3 laps of the end-to-end layout - the longest in terms of time taken. Nobby himself was first up...

   

John and Wayne both nudged below 80-seconds with some of their cars, so I was delighted when I got my Galant round in 80 seconds dead...

   

For the challenge - and tackling it cold for the first time - Nobby's Nightmare was my favourite stage of the day and the Galant my most enjoyable run.

We ended up on another fabulous stage, Colin's sheep stage ('Beware of the sheep' I think is its proper name?)...

   

Created during the pandemic, this L-shaped stage contains lots of driving challenges with the option (not used today) of different power and braking profiles on several different zones (eg no brakes on the green areas, lowered voltage on the textured grey areas etc). It's a brilliantly thought-out and delightfully executed slot rally stage...

       

       

The Avant Slot Galant looked a bit tight through the gate during the lunchtime photo-shoot. On its first time through of eight, there was a bang and the driver-side wing-mirror popped off. The Subaru was last through - my final run of a very enjoyable day. A big thank you to Nobby, John, Colin and Wayne for their companionship during the stages and giving me a priceless lesson in how to drive fast and accurately.

   

Mike, Terry and Phil were finishing up their final stage and all the data was being crunched at Slot Rally HQ. All apart from one group, who'd lagged behind all day and still had two stages to do. It did mean we had a chance to unwind, help pack away complete stages, clear up the kitchen and prepare the prize giving.

The results eventually arrived - the names Jeremy, Andy and Mike featuring regularly as the top tens of each class were read out. Mike did particularly well - bagging second place in both Classic and Modern...

   

A successful and very enjoyable day for the Worthing contingent.

Huge thanks to the Slot Rally GB crew and all the Oxford club members for putting on a top-rate event in a beautiful setting. Definitely food-for-thought for our WHO events...

The next Slot Rally GB rounds are in June - Farnborough on Sunday 1 June and St Albans on Sunday 22. If you want to join us on the road, give us a shout. Our WHO Slot Rally cars run to the same classes and regulations. The series visits the Barn on Saturday 19 July, before moving to Abergavenny for the championship finale on Sunday 7 September. All the details are here.

[BAracer]

It wouldn't have been Oxfordshire without sight of one of these circling overhead as I ate my lunchtime sandwiches in the churchyard!

       

[BAracer]

A grand day out up North!

Any early start for me saw me hitting the road at 5:30am having woken at 4:00am worrying about the whether to risk the diversion around the M25 J10 closure ,or head west and take the longer route via Southampton. I did the latter.

Unlike Woodcote, I don't have the ability to concentrate on my racing AND take photos of my cars or the track, and the first event in the series had been in my thoughts all through the long Winter months. I had set myself the aim of trying to avoid de-slots at all cost, as that is where time is lost, and that is where my focus for the event was. I haven't seen the results yet, but I came out of the day thinking I didn't do too bad, that I couldn't have done much better (the drive home is always better when your head isn't full of 'what ifs...'!).

The tracks were all great, both to look at and to drive. The bacon rolls and cakes made for a very comfortable and welcoming stay at the clubhouse/village hall. As Woodcote mentioned, it has set the bar high for our round later in the year!

[woodcote]

All the class and overall results are here: https://slotracer.online/community/showt...2#pid42792