[woodcote]

   

What a fabulous evening! Not many WHO racers have Raid vehicles, so we didn't know how many to expect. Twenty-six people (we think) raced, with another four coming along to see what was going on. Some travelled a fair distance, but it was mostly regular WHO racers. The club cars did put in a good shift, although there were a couple of big Raid collections...

         

... and they'd have to pick just three for the timed runs.

But lets go back to the beginning. Myself and Jeremy arrived with all the track and accessories at 1pm. Setting up a new format for the first time always needs more time, with a certain amount of standing around and looking perplexed. Scott joined us shortly after and he was tasked with building the Mercredi à Bamako stage.

Jeremy had started with the easiest layout - Under the Bridge...

   

Meanwhile, I put together The Dune of Doom...

   

The two biggest stages - one SCX, one Ninco - gradually took shape. Jeremy had constructed supports for the series of dunes on Midnight at the Oasis...

   

And Scott used all the space on the tables to create a superb Ninco off-road layout...

   

... to which I added a few clip-in obstacles near the driver and lots of scenic elements - stones supplied by Benton Weatherstone, cacti from Sainsbury's and cardboard mountains from an old Tyco HO off-road set...

         

Jeremy provided camels and a helicopter...

         

Graham joined us around 3pm - as we were putting the finishing touches to the stages. He'd brought twenty-five proxy cars (including two Dakar trucks) to run across two stages - The Dune of Doom and Midnight at the Oasis...

   

Scott, Jeremy and myself shared driving duties, taking a class each. And I took some shots of those trucks on the other stages...

         

The two hours it took us to run the proxy cars took us up to 6pm and the official start of the WHO event. Stages were open as people arrived, with timed runs starting about 7.15pm. Once I get the spreadsheet from Kev, I'll report back...