[woodcote]

The cars have reached sunny Brighton and will be running Round 2 of the proxy on two stages. The first is a Ninco rally layout - this will be completed today. The second is a short sprint on the Brighton Pavilion ice rink - taking place on Sunday morning. Combined timed will give us the Round 2 results.

       

The Suzuki Swift course car ran the Ninco layout last night, followed by a brief shakedown for all the cars, to ensure they could all make it round...

       

As you can see, there's a combination of standard Ninco (tarmac) and Ninco off-road track pieces. The course starts at the rally loop in the middle...

       

And then moves swiftly to the off-road section, made up of sweeping standard radius curves connected by mixture of straights. The track surface is bumpy, but designed to be compatible with all slot cars. Most cars judder over the track - so a sprung guide, weight in the front, decent body float and suspension on the axles all contribute to a smoother ride and minimise the chances of a random deslot. I've also included a bridge using the ramps from a Ninco 'Dune' set connected by a couple of straights - which is another challenge...

       

The tarmac section is respite from the bumpy off-road track and includes a second rally loop (with a pub). The tarmac starts and finishes with an inner radius hairpin to give a test of the cars' nimbleness...

       

Then it's back through the off-road section, over the bridge and ending at the return loop where cars will be timed using the LapTracker - AutoTimer app running on an ancient iphone and external battery pack.

I'll be timing the cars for five laps on both this Ninco stage and the ice rink - so Round 2 results are very much skewed to today's times and dependent on each car's ability to get round the off-road track section.

I'll run through the Event lists in order - then reverse them on Sunday, starting with the car that runs last today.