[CMOTD]

Race Report
Well that was a fun way to spend Sunday, playing with other people's toy cars in the back garden on a glorious sunny day with Tel helping out.

As my raid track has no timing option we gave the cars a two minute run on each lane with total laps the scoring method. Thankfully there was no need for a secondary measurement as there were no ties for position. Tel had an entry in two of the classes so I drove those ones and he did the other two which he wasn't involved in to ensure no favouritism.

The track is not an easy one to master and several cars were caught out on various bits of it but that is the point of the exercise. There were very few totally clear rounds in any class, the top positions basically went to those who fell off the least and outright speed was of little consequence. Strangely, although the obstacles were the same on both lanes several cars fared much worse on the inner circuit.

On then to the results:
Class R1 - Ninco
These cars cannot cope with SCX obstacles so, apart from the two bridges and the oasis, they were all removed and replaced with various Ninco ones. A quick test revealed that they couldn't manage those either so most of them were removed as well! Even so they struggled with the second of the two bridges, either getting stuck on the way up or deslotting on the way down.

The cars were fairly evenly matched with just five laps separating first from last. Bernie's Montero just took the top spot by .4 of a lap from Paul C's identical car with Doug's Pajero a little behind in third.

   

   

Class R2 - SCX

No problems with a full set of obstacles here, these cars romped round the track with placings really decided by how stable they were in the corners. Both second and third placed cars had totally clear rounds while Andy Player's winning sand buggy had just the one off due to an over enthusiastic trigger finger. Paul's Touareg was second with James' Montero in third.

   

   

Class R3 - Pro RTR

Bit of a mixed bag in this class, the top three had no real problems with Graham's winning Porsche posting the only clear round. Gerry's Lancer was second with Phil Field's similar car in third.

The remaining cars each had deficiencies though. Doug's Hummer was way too wide and spent most of its run with one wheel on the grass. It coped easily with the obstacles but came to grief on the corners too often. Jim's Lancer had engine troubles with intermittent very slow running and sometimes cutting out altogether. Finally, James' Porsche had too deep a guide which jammed in the slot of the Scalextric classic track so I had to record a DNF for that one. I don't know if it was within spec or not but none of the other cars in any class had this problem.

   

   

Class R4 - Open

Graham's Odyssey smashed the opposition in this one with 5 laps the winning margin over the 2nd placed car. It is going to be very hard to beat in this class - smooth, fast and stable over every obstacle. Tel's Pajero was second but his choice of an NSR motor wasn't the greatest idea as it was very much a flat out or nothing one and was difficult to tame without an electronic controller to hand. Although the obstacles were no problem there were a few too many off track excursions to mount a challenge for first place. The biggest surprise though was the performance of Micky's AA patrol van, the thing is enormous and whacked the sides of the suspension bridge on every lap. It never missed a beat though, hardly fell off at all and the bridges were taken virtually flat out. Most entertaining entry of them all.

Next up was Kev's Datsun truck which was better this year as it no longer jackknifed but still had severe difficulty with the obstacles and had to be driven very slowly indeed to get over them. Bernie's 2CV filled the final place but I really should have given it a DNF. It was so low that it got stuck on the hump bridge on every lap bar one and it never managed the plank bridge at all.

   

   

All done for another year then and the cars are packed ready for onward transit to the next host. It just remains to thank Graham for organising things, Tel for his company and invaluable help, the competitors for providing a day of sheer enjoyment running their cars and my partner Christine for keeping us fed and watered and translating my illegible writing into readable results. Proxy racing is great, I just wish I had got involved much earlier.