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Race Report - Nascar Club Car Team Race

Despite the aftermath of Storm Dennis, plenty of half-term roadworks and the ongoing coronavirus outbreak on this part of the south coast, twenty-six people came along to the Barn for what would be an exciting evening of Scalextric digital racing. We welcomed Waseem for his first digital event, but there were also other digital novices – Ed and John W were back for second go, plus Andy D joined us for the first time in a long while.

The set-up crew made quick work of Mike’s compact track design, which featured an eye-catching corkscrew section at the kitchen end. The two parallel straights were lengthened by a couple of feet to give a total length of just over 110-feet. Ryan and Andy sorted out the teams using the 2020 WHO/digital driver seedings – and we were ready to race at 7pm with four teams of four and two teams of five. Mike’s grid of five Pontiac Grand Prix and one Ford Taurus looked fabulous – a throwback to the pre-WHO/digital rug racing days.

Segment One – 20 minutes

Daniel and Ash worked out a perfect system on Race Control – the bell signalled a driver change for the five-driver teams and the usual flashing light was used for the others. Teams just had to worry about the fuel simulation for the first twenty minutes, to ease everyone into RCS64. Two teams finished on 64 laps – Daniel, Jean, Peter and Rob getting to the line first, ahead of Oliver, Oli, Matthew, Duncan and Waseem. Three laps behind, Jerome, Mike D, Graham and Steve finished in front of Ryan, Alex S, John F, Mike Mc and Ed. So far so good. Ash, Dean, Terry and Andy D were a further three laps back on 58 laps – six behind the leaders. However, back on 55 laps – nine behind the top two teams – were Alex, Andy P, Simon and John W. They’d lost a lot of time, running out of fuel and unable to pit – but digital racing is a learning process, they could only improve.

Segment Two – 40 minutes

Alex’s team did immediately bounce back, smashing out 67 laps with both the fuel and tyre simulations running. That was enough to win the segment and was the top score of the race. Lessons learned, perhaps? Just a lap behind in second place was Ash’s team, also making up ground lost in the first segment. Ryan’s team were third on 64 laps, two laps ahead of Daniel’s team, who would hold the overall lead with 20 minutes to go. Ryan’s team had moved up to second overall, just ahead of Ash’s quartet. Oliver’s team had dropped from second to fourth after a disappointing 59 laps. Jerome’s team had dropped to the back, having scored 60.

First to last were covered by just five laps – so it was anyone’s race going into the final twenty minutes…

Segment Three – 60 minutes

It was a tense and exciting finale. Again, Alex’s team looked really strong, battling for the lead with Oliver, Oli, Matthew, Duncan and Waseem. Coming from fourth and fifth place overall, they both had ground to make up on the race leaders. Daniel’s team had to keep the gap within a couple of laps to hold on to their overall lead and win the race. The pace at the front was frenetic – both teams pushing their pit stop strategy to the limit to try and find a crucial advantage. Oliver’s team – in the orange Home Depot car – decided to pit for a splash & dash with about a minute to go. Alex’s team – in the M&Ms yellow Pontiac – stayed out and drove to conserve fuel. The orange car was pushing hard, the yellow one tip-toeing round… As the twenty minutes were up, the yellow Pontiac had already slipped through for one final lap, but the orange car – about ten feet behind – did not, finishing on 65 laps to Alex’s team’s 66. That would be crucial…

With the three segment totals added up, Daniel, Jean, Peter and Rob were the winners on 189 laps. Oliver and Alex’s teams were level on 188, but Alex, Andy, Simon and John took second thanks to finishing first in the final segment. Not only would overturning those ten feet have given Oliver’s team the segment win, an extra lap would have given them the overall race win… Ten feet was the difference between first and third. Daniel’s team had just done enough with their 63 laps. Ash’s team came in fourth on 62 laps and finished in fourth overall – three laps behind the winners. Jerome’s team were fifth on 61 laps, but that was not enough to beat Ryan’s team to fifth overall.

After an hour of racing, four laps covered the top five places – the gap between first and sixth was only seven laps… That has to be the closest six-way battle we’ve had. Huge congratulations to our winners and a big pat on the back for all the racers who gave us such a close race. Team photos and the medal presentation over, it was time for the Trans-Am pairs race.