[Kevan]

Race reports - 1st Feb 2024 - NSR ‘Club Challenge’ #1 plus TV/Film cars
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NSR ‘CLUB CHALLENGE’ #1 - track at 11 volts

   
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This year we have two distinct events, the official ‘Club Challenge Championship’ and an unofficial ‘Club Challenge non-Championship’
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During practice Geoff put his car on the track and whizzed round in 5.9 seconds…he was going to be hard to beat tonight
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The championship contenders this year: Chris, Ed, Gav, Mike B & Mike H
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Chris, Ed & Gav raced each other tonight and Heat #1 saw the best score in Yellow lane all night…as Ed won this heat to beat the rest of us in that lane…nice one Ed!
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The tyres on these cars are now so grippy that we’re seeing a few deslots similar to what we saw the last two years when we raced these at 13.8 volts, consequently the overall lead ebbed and flowed.  Andy & Geoff set the pace in the Red lane, Ed & Kev in the Yellow lane and Kev, Brian & Geoff in the Blue lane.
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Andy was always quick but got drawn into racing for the lead a couple of times too many and ended up in the barriers.
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Brian just couldn’t get going in the Red lane but flew round in the Blue lane in his last race to take some kind of comfort from the evenings racing.
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The overall winner not decided until the last two laps as Kev, who was 4th overall before this race had a great run to overtake Geoff in top spot…as did Andy much to Geoff’s huge disappointment.
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As far as the championship is concerned, with great runs in both Red and Blue lanes, Chris finished just over a lap ahead of Ed with Gav a few laps further back. 
Gav’s best run by far was in the Yellow lane but really struggled on the other two lanes.

   

   
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TV/FILM CARS (Back to Basics)

   
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This was going to be interesting, now bear in mind this event isn’t about having the fastest car as there were LOTS of bonuses to be added before and after the racing.
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Back to basics means no racing specials and to discourage that the basic cars were given lap bonuses for the various standard parts on their car then racing lap bonuses based on each cars fastest lap on the three lanes.
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Some of us have been prepping cars for this 4 part series for many weeks…some have done little to no prep at all…consequently we saw a huge gap in race performance…but those gaps closed right down once the bonuses were added.  So despite Andy saying we’ll all be racing Batmobiles because it went well (and it did after much prep) that isn’t necessary as you’ll see from the results, it’s all about keeping in the slot and out of trouble not having the overall fastest car.
Kev’s ‘The Batman 2022’ car had the least deslots of any car and thereby the best chance of overall win…but it was much closer than expected!
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One thing that came out of this event is the cars themselves, although all but one were Scalextric cars, one had a set of plastic wheels and gears from a standard Ninco, which is also a ‘Back 2 Basics’ car so I’ve given the bonuses for those too (Ed’s Batmobile).
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Gav’s Ferrari isn’t a B2B car so didn’t get many car bonuses
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I think it’s fair to say this event was a big success and look forward to the next one in May.


 
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Next week is Slot Rally