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WHO Winter Rally-Sprint News Briefing 1 – Wednesday 27 January 2021

A week into the event and we have the opening ceremony and three of the eleven stages in the bag. We’ll take a quick look back at the highlights of the past week. There’s also news about sponsorship and goodies...


1. Opening ceremony – Wednesday 20 January. The rally-sprint began with all 46 cars presented on the ceremonial start ramp at Rally-Sprint HQ in Brighton. You can see pictures of all the cars, plus some commentary on the 28 participants here. You can also grab a look at the cars in this video…




2. Stage 1: Falmer Rally-Cross 1. The action began last Thursday on a Ninco circuit - a mix of tarmac and off-road surfaces. The rough stuff was certainly a challenge for some of the cars!

   

The class podiums were…

• Class A: 1. Clive Mills, 2. Graham Edwards, 3. Andy Player
  
• Class B: 1. Andy Player & Rebecca Shtasel, 2. Paul Cooper, 3. Clive Mills
  
• Class C: 1. Andy Player, 2. Alan Wilkinson, 3. Sebastian Birchmore
  

   

For each stage, the host will score the average (median) time for the class, so the rally leader after Stage 1 was Nascot Wood’s Alan Wilkinson. Full coverage of Stage 1 started here.


3. Stage 2: Martyrs’ Mile. After a road transfer to Goring-by-Sea, the second special stage took place on Sunday and Monday 24 & 25 January. Simon’s layout was mostly Scalextric Sport track, with rally loops at each end...

   

The podiums were:

• Class A: 1. Noah Passell, 2. Doug Passell, 3. Mike Scott
  
• Class B: 1. Doug & Noah Passell, 2. Oli Abbott, 3. Graham Edwards
  
• Class C: 1. Alan Birchmore, 2. Phil Field, 3. Andy Player
  

   

There was a real shaking up of the order, leaving Wye Valley’s Alan Birchmore in the overall lead, 1.64 seconds ahead of clubmate Phil Field. Clive and Graham were tied top of Class A, with local racer Oli Abbott leading Class B with his Quattro. Full coverage of Stage 2 started here.


4. Stage 3: Jupp’s Cup. Simon built his second stage Monday night and it was ready for action yesterday. This was a traditional circuit made up from a mix of Sport and Classic track...

   

These were the podiums...

• Class A: 1. Paul Cooper, 2. Jeremy Belcher, 3. Doug Passell
  
• Class B: 1. Oli Abbott, 2. Doug & Noah, 3. Andy & Rebecca
  
• Class C: 1. Alan Wilkinson, 2. Phil Barry, 3. Phil Field
  

   

The Stage 3 result puts Alan Wilkinson top of the standings at the end of the first week – but just 0.04 seconds ahead of Alan Birchmore! Oli has stretched his lead over Doug & Noah in Class B and Graham leads Noah in Class A. Full coverage of Stage 3 started here.


Massive thanks to Simon for getting his two stages wrapped-up on his days off. Great photos too! The cars will now make a short trip to Oli’s – also in Goring – for stages 4 and 5, which will take place over the next couple of weeks.


5. Sponsorship News. We are very grateful to the UK slot car businesses who are supporting our event!

• Jadlam Toys & Models have provided stickers for all the Rally-Sprint participants. They will also be sending a car as a prize. Jadlams are one of the biggest Scalextric retailers worldwide. Their website is here and they also have a new blog with a range of slot car and model kit articles.
  
• Local retailer and distributor Gaugemaster have sent two cars for prizes and some publicity for all the participants. Gaugemaster distribute numerous slot car brands in the UK, including Fly, Slot.it, Policar, NSR, Ninco and SCX. Their website is here.
  

There are few more companies seeing what they can dig out for us.

Don’t forget, there’ll be a weekly Rally-Sprint round-up every Wednesday at 5pm UK time. I've also added links on the opening post to help navigate through this report event. The start of each stage and the results are linked next to the stage list.