[Kevan]

Rally Cars Slotting Proxy - Isle of Man - 20th May - 

A blockbuster finale was what I wanted to finish the final round of this proxy.

With two entries from this club we decided to split the group of cars into two and run both Rally stages simultaneously with help from two marshals.

Our Rally tracks have reverse direction switches fitted so we ran both tracks in both directions to give four runs for each car, both drivers driving all the cars on both stages.

The two tracks are called TT Grandstand which was 11 laps, and Little Druidale which was 7 laps.

Rather than run the cars in event groups, they were organised in descending order from the overall times sheet with Groundhogs Audi Quattro A2 going first and Road Runners FIAT 131 Abarth going last.

This was the running order:
19 41 Groundhogs Audi Quattro A2 1
3 40 Novissime Iterum Austin 1800 24
2 39 Groundhogs Alfa Gran Turismo 7
11 38 Ruscillo Racing Audi Quattro A1 2
14 37 Novissime Iterum Audi Quattro A2 8
18 36 Brumos RSR BMW M1 9
5 35 Lifeboats Racing Cortina Mk 1 8
8 34 Team Cube Ferrari 308 3
9 33 Lifeboats Racing Audi Quattro A2 1
7 32 Green Star Racing Healey 3000 21
29 31 ALS Racing Alfa Giulia GTV 79
26 30 Scott Sports Ford Escort Mk1 20
12 29 Mountain View Lancia Delta S4 7
30 28 Courtney Sport Porsche 914/6 78
20 27 Courtney Sport Porsche 924 3
28 26 SSRC Triumph TR7 2
27 25 James@Wye Valley Porsche 914/6 -
22 24 Team Cube Triumph TR7 11
4 23 Road Runners Jaguar XK120 47
39 22 High Voltage Subaru 4
13 21 Woodcote Racing Porsche 911SC 4
1 20 Manx Kev Jaguar XK 120 36
36 19 SSRC Ford Focus 11
34 18 Mountain View Hyundai I20 6
38 17 BARacer Citroen C4 1
41 16 James@Wye Valley Subaru 5
32 15 Harrison's Racers Subaru 10
6 14 Manx Andy Jaguar XK 120 28
25 13 BARacer Triumph TR7 6
21 12 Brumos RSR Porsche 914/6   3
35 11 Team Alaric Subaru 7
10 10 Savage GT BMW M1 3
16 9 Green Star Racing De Tomaso Pantera 43
15 8 Harrison's Racers Lancia 037 1
40 7 Scott Sports Renault Clio 21
17 6 Bangers Racing Metro 6R4 11
37 5 Woodcote Racing Subaru         5
31 4 Bangers Racing Citroen Saxo 7
23 3 Savage GT Porsche 914/6 118
33 2 Ruscillo Racing Citroen C4 5
24 1 Road Runners FIAT 131 Abarth 52

The two hour car preview done on Friday saved a lot of time as that was originally intended for today.

DNF’s - (125 seconds allocated which is just longer than the slowest run time achieved).
Sadly,  Lifeboats Racing Audi Quattro A2 never made it round TT Grandstand as it refused to move as the flag dropped, it was found that a wire had pulled out of one of the guide ferrules and one of the braids was badly damaged.
The other DNF was Ruscillo Racing - Citroen C4 which never made it round Little Druidale as the gear mesh was non-existent. To be honest it sounded a bit ropey on the two runs it did manage.  The spur still has teeth but the pinion was just touching it enough to move the car on the two runs it did manage but not thereafter.

Both drivers used their usual controllers, without prior testing it was a case of adjusting brakes/sensitivity/top speed on-the-fly.  This was a first for me as I like to do a fair few laps to get settings but there wasn’t time to do this.  Some cars dialled in almost immediately, some needed a couple of laps.

Problems highlighted in the preview video proved the downfall for some cars, the hope is lessons can be learned for next time as car setup can be never ending.

The common theme during feedback from the better cars was they go best when:
- there’s no tyre rubbing on the chassis or bodywork
- tyres are glued and trued
- the body can roll freely
- the guide has little side-play
- motor pods when fitted were loose

The car with tyres in the best condition was a big surprise, Kev’s TR7 on urethanes, and they had more than enough grip, definitely something to experiment with myself.

If I could keep three cars they would be:
- Bangers Racing Citroen Saxo, what an absolute rocket, so easy to drive, the chassis layout was a big eye opener, SlotIt HRS2 adjustable AW chassis with FK180 motor (it’s NO WONDER the Metro 6R4 went well also)
- Courtney Sport Porsche 914/6, why is this so far down the pecking order, it’s a belting car!
- Savage GT BMW M1, it’s a big car and was caught out on the stoney bridge but would have been on the podium in our last Slot Rally

Now the video…..Mike had two webcams running, one on each Rally stage, doing his film director bit during the afternoon, he has a fair few hours ahead of him before I get the files to upload to youtube.

I got to the club room just before 11:30 and locked up at 6:30…there was a lot to do include battery going flat on the phone with the Laptrax timing app, Ninco timing bridge nearly going up in smoke after a brand new battery fitted short circuited inside and had to be thrown outside as it was too hot to touch.  We had visitors, a family who most of us knew but had never seen our club room before and a club member who wanted to watch proceedings for an hour or so before having to leave to do something ‘more important’...scrabble club (yes really!).

The club facilities are on a trading estate, the unit opposite is rented by a motorsport tuning business, with TT week looming there’s plenty of bike tuning going on and the noisy racket outside may well be heard on the video, thankfully not for long.

We have been working on Little Druidale recently, some of the new features (rocks, stream, bridge) played a role in one way or another today.  The stream dried up and had to be removed during proceedings, the Landcrab roof rack got caught in a tree, one of the 914/6’s had an argument with the rocks by the bridge less than two seconds after the start and had to restart.

We were fair as far as practical, one or two cars had to be re-run for one reason or another, but a DNF requiring dismantling and new parts was never going to fit into the time frame we had.

A lot of cars were a pleasure to drive…some were an interesting challenge!

7 hours of enjoyment were had today, by the end of which I think we were both drained, you start to lose concentration after a while.

This was the first proxy we’ve hosted, it was well worth the wait, a lot of lessons were learned as there’s more to do than you realise if you want to film proceedings.  Would I do it again…DEFINITELY.  The next one will be the Touring Cars Slotting Proxy but should be much easier to run than two simultaneous Rally stages.

Here's the screen grabs of the results, Graham will post the official results in due course.  The videos will be a few days...

   
   
   
   

Cumulative overall results from today: