[woodcote]

   

In the end, there were five of us who made the journey up to Farnborough - Terry picking up myself, Mike and Phil at various stops along the A27, then heading up the A3; Jeremy taking a more direct route from Eastbourne. We all arrived in plenty of time at what turned out to be Gareth's old primary school.

   

As early birds, Jeremy, Phil and myself were in the first group of five to hit the eight stages - starting on the SCX Classic 'Snow Time'. It was a good one to start with, with the usual power issues for classic track and an occasionally glitchy Ninco timing bridge.

   

Terry's group  started on a neat little Scalextric Sport figure-of-eight. His Teamslot Renault 5 was still suffering the effects of our last event at the Barn and was retired on the start line - the organisers (of which one was in Terry's group) kindly supplied him a replacement.

Mike started his day - I think -  on the magnificent Farnborough Airport stage, of which more later. Although we spent the morning in close proximity to Terry's group, we didn't see much of Mike until lunchtime.

   

Phil had a beautiful quartet of cars that had seen action at the Barn, but they didn't seem to like the trip up north. It would later turn out to be his controller, which didn't want to play with the local wiring.

   

That first stage finished, it was time to rotate to any stage that was empty. We chose the routed 'Hill Farm', which is where Phil's - and Jeremy's - controller woes were finally diagnosed and they switched from their Truspeeds to basic Parma resistor controllers. Both now started to relax and enjoy their days.

   

Hill Farm was a very enjoyable stage, tricky to push really hard. A measured approach and avoiding too much tail-out action was the key to a good time. My Ninco Porsche didn't do badly...

   

One stage that we'd finish the day on, but grabbed our attention early, was the fiendish 'Gymkhana' - two boards of routed swirls, linked by a chute of multiple Classic Goodwood Chicane pieces. Both Mike and Terry's groups would get to grips with it before we did...

   

Our third stage was up some stairs out of the main hall into a lobby. Tucked in a corner by some external doors was the magnificent 'Mini Hill Climb'...

   

This shows what can be done with Classic track on a permanent layout, with any potential connectivity issues nullified by soldering every joint. The endless elevation and camber changes made the stage a challenge, but the power delivery was perfect, meaning it was possible to really attack the hill. The descent did require some caution. I absolutely loved it!

   

   

We returned to the hall for a fourth stage, which would take us to our halfway point. The 'Crate Loop' was in the corner of the room where all the track crates were stored for the temporary layouts...

   

The Ninco off-road surface was familiar from our WHO Jupp's Farm stage. There were added elevation changes thanks to the Ninco 'Dune' pieces (we do have some...) which made the loop even more of a challenge, especially for cars with limited ground clearance. Of my cars, the Ninco Porsche was the best over the rough stuff...

   

We could have taken our lunch break at this point. To be fair, we were all probably ready for a rest and some sustenance, but we continued with a fifth stage - the little Scalextric Sport figure-of-eight...

   

Our familiarity racing on Sport track should have made this one a very good stage for WHO racers! Having got safely through the necessary number of laps, it was time for a break until we felt fully-recharged and ready for our final three stages of the event.