[woodcote]

   

The Barn is a stuffy old eighteenth-century building with no ventilation. There are a number of us at the club who need to avoid getting Covid at all costs. Worthing is also the national hotspot for infection rates at the moment...

When we return, everyone will be required to carry on with common sense Covid precautions. Everyone will need to wear a face mask - and we'll be expecting people to keep hand washing and sanitizing, plus giving each other some space.

The easiest way to keep Covid out of the Barn is not to turn up if you have any symptoms - and to take a lateral flow test to pick up any asymptomatic infection. Free tests are available until the end of March - so stock up!

We're all used to this by now - so lets keep looking after each other and enjoy some racing.

[woodcote]

       

A few of us visited the Barn last night to see how things might work. We also checked over the WHO/digital equipment and set up a small track. There are few things to sort out – but that’s not surprising after nearly two years! A slightly larger event will take place in two weeks’ time – involving the club organising team members and the HO equipment.

Covid precautions: One thing we did last night was to get a reasonable flow of air through the middle part of the Barn. Mask wearing didn’t interfere with our work or our fun – and a big bottle of sanitizer was well-used. As we ramp up the numbers at the Barn, we’ll see what else we might need to do.

Common-sense precautions of ‘hands-face-space’ and fresh air should keep the Barn a safe place – especially if we keep Covid out in the first place. That means asking you all not to attend if you have any symptoms and to take a lateral flow test sometime on the Wednesday, just to make sure. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

First two events are free: It’s been a long two years, so there’s no charge for the two events in April. We’re also looking at non-cash ways to pay – including a ‘season ticket’ scheme – although cash on the door will always be an option.

Club Controllers and Club Cars: Some of you have invested in HO controllers and cars, ready for the big return. Thank you. For those of you new to our HO racing, the club cars remain available – each of them stays on its coloured lane. We also have a box of DS, Parma and Ninco loaner controllers – you’ll borrow one for the entire evening.

Let us know if you’re coming: One thing that will be really useful is if you can let us know if you’re coming to a WHO event. It’s not 100% essential, but will make the job of our race control volunteers easier – especially if you need to borrow a controller or use the club cars. Please, email, message, text, comment on this forum etc.

Kitchen and club shop: To keep things simple and safe, the kitchen will be out of bounds until the summer. In addition, the shop won’t be at the Barn for a couple of months – but you will be able to order cars and spares to collect. Pete is taking over running the HO shop and we can pass any requests or messages on to him.

   

[woodcote]

Our HO warm-up event went smoothly last night...

       

The main thing was to get a few of us together and go through the motions of a club night. Perhaps not surprisingly, the humans were far more rusty than the track or equipment! It was great to welcome some new faces to our set-up team. With Covid cases still high, it's more important to have a big group of volunteers in case people have to cancel at the last minute.

       

The HO track hadn't been used for 24 1/2 months and was stored in crates in an unheated side room at the Barn. There was absolutely no rust and very little dirt came off when Jerome shined up every piece with a pan scourer. That's probably thanks to the long-term effect of INOX MX3 we run round on a Micro Scalextric car's braids at the start of each event - which, of course, I forgot to pack last night... Even so, everything fired up and we had the track running as quickly as if we'd raced four weeks ago.

       

We have made some changes to the technology. Gone are three ancient Windows 98 laptops and monitors - in is one newer laptop running Windows 10 and with an HDMI output to a massive 50" TV. We'll use this for both WHO/digital and our HO nights. I took Race Coordinator along for a quick demo, but people really took to it and we used it all night. In 2 hours, I'd trained up three others to run heats, add parts etc.. To be honest, I think all the 15 people there could easily run a race - it's that intuitive. The only headache is the event set-up... TopDown will be getting an email for advice - I have 3 weeks to get RC ready to run a full WHO event in the format we want.

It was brilliant to be back - still plenty of care is needed with cases and hospital admissions spiking on the south coast (meaning one no-show last night). We did manage to get a very good breeze through most of the Barn - and mask-wearing and hand-sanitizing became second-nature pretty quickly. Back at our last event in March 2020, hand sanitizer cost £5-10 for a 500ml bottle. We have a supply of 22 bottles than cost us about a tenner in total! That should keep us going for a while...

Fingers-crossed, in 3 weeks we will have officially 'returned to the Barn' and this thread will have done its job.

[Top Down]

I'll reply ASAP via email. Got builders in at the mo' so PC has become nocturnal. Covered up and in hibernation until tonight.

However events are just two separate races which you link under an event you create. You just need to think how you want them to work together. I'm guessing it will be qualifying in the first race and the second will be the finals?

[Top Down]

 

Temporary respite. Being retired days blur in to one another. I forgot about the weekend and no builders. 

A seies of emails are hurtling their way to you. 

[woodcote]

A big thanks to Doug - we're pretty much ready to roll with Race Coordinator next Wednesday...

   

It'll look even prettier next week and we'll have some driver icons in there too... once people have sent them in.

There's plenty more basic stuff like medals and paperwork to get prepared over the weekend, to make sure the first event in 24 months is not too rusty!