[Gareth]

   

Round 3 of the F1 championship saw the return of one of our old Micro Scalextric team championship tracks; the fabulous Suzuka.  The track stretched beautifully across the Barn requiring some careful positioning of the marshals to ensure the drivers could see past the Kobayashi hairpin to Spoon curve at the far end.  During practice we saw a lot of crashing and a wild variety of times as people either adapted to the track or didn’t!  It was certainly a challenge with the tyre limited Super Gs.  

   

We had 22 drivers on the grid this time with people grabbing an end of summer holiday before returning to school and work.  No new drivers this month but we did welcome back young Oliver and Adam the Elder for a couple of rounds of heats.  


The first of the big scores arrived in Heat 2 with Pete blasting in an 18.9 on yellow.  Indeed by the halfway point, he had nearly a 2 lap lead on Oliver W, Keith and Terry.  I was in p5 in my new Bulldog F1 car, the first one in the club.  I had changed the axles to get a lower ride height and the result was a super safe car through Suzuka’s fearsome esses and Casio chicane. 


There were many fast drivers who had struggles in one or two lanes but recovered with big scores elsewhere to vault themselves up the order.  Ryan’s 19 in white, Jerome’s 19 in red and Deborah’s improvements changed the order all changed things up at the end of qualifying to leave the order Pete, Keith, Oliver, Ryan, Terry and Deborah.