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The second round of our 2025 WHO GT Championship was also our Easter holiday team race. That tradition goes back to 2014 and has featured Micro Scalextric, AFX LMP and now digital team races. In addition to the race winners medals, there were five Easter eggs up for grabs too.

   

We finally got to race on the track Simon had designed for the January Nascar & Legends night - and it looked fabulous on paper and even better set up at the Barn...

   

Fast and technical, practice suggested this was a track to favour the inline cars. There was plenty of testing going on and important car choices made. Slimline decided against running the Ford GTE this time and ran with the Dadson Bentley Continental - the team will run four different cars over the season. Ryan was back at the helm of Smooth Ops and decided to go with his pink and silver Mercedes rather than Simon's Bentley. For MOZZIE, Matthew was deputising for Dean and they had an Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The other three teams would race the same machinery from Round One. And - as far as possible - we kept the driver line-ups from last time...

   

The official action began at 7pm with the 2-minute Super-Pole session. The team members taking part would start the race. As always, it was a frantic session, with some drivers nailing a great lap and others not. In the end, these were the times...

   
 
A fine return for Ryan and suggested the Mercedes has perked up since last season. With Ollie just eighteen hundredths of a second behind, we were all looking forward to a exciting opening stint to the race...

   

Race Control rolled the weather dice and we'd set the 575 lap race up with three random weather elements - RCS64 would decide what those were...

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The weather forecast for the race was starting and ending dry, but with a little moisture in the middle - essentially a dry race, but perhaps some care needed on Hard tyres at some point. The cars were lined up in qualifying order and we were off for 575 laps, which should take about 2 hours.

The first five minutes of racing were captivating - Ollie taking the Slimline Bentley into the lead after a brilliant dice with Ryan in the early stages. Behind them was a monumental four-way battle for third - the racing close, fair and clean. The first team to fall away was MOZZIE, the Aston Martin's wing requiring replacement on two occasions early-on...

   

Such was their pace, Ollie and Ryan had soon lapped the rest of the field. Ryan backed off just a little and moved the Smooth Ops AMG into the lead when a few errors crept into Ollie's driving. All teams were good to the end of the stint for fuel, but tyre wear was an issue. As those first stops loomed - with twelve minutes of the race gone - Ryan led Ollie by almost a lap, John had the Écurie Escargot Aston in third, four laps behind the lead and one ahead of Ash in the WHAM! Bentley and Terry in the Gearzilla AMG. Those rear wing issues for MOZZIE had Matthew five laps adrift in sixth.

Ollie was the first to change tyres, with all the teams following suit in the fourteenth minute of the race. That gave a short-ish dash to the first driver change window, opening at 19 minutes and closing two minutes later...

   

At the 20 minute mark, the race order saw Smooth Ops in the lead with 110 laps - a massive opening stint for Ryan. Slimline were seven laps behind and three ahead of Écurie Escargot in third. Five laps further adrift were WHAM! and there were also 5 lap gaps to Gearzilla in fifth and MOZZIE in sixth. Mike D had taken over the Slimline Bentley to try and reduce the gap to the leaders. However, he immediately lost 20 seconds sitting in the pits for the first of three success penalties incurred for winning the March race. Gearzilla and WHAM! would also join Mike in the pits for their penalties. That meant Stephen moved the Écurie Escargot Aston into second place...

   

Try as he could, Mike struggled to claw laps back on Stephen ahead and Duncan in the lead car. Eventually he moved past Stephen, who ground to a halt with 38 minutes gone. Tragically for the Écurie Escargot guys, re-soldering a snapped wire cost them nearly 10 minutes off track - they would not rejoin until just before the halfway point of the third stint. Despite being off track, the stricken Aston Martin still showed third at 40 minutes, albeit 13 laps adrift of Slimline in second. Smooth Operators lead remained 7 laps - Duncan staying on for a double stint. Gearzilla and WHAM! both had their bronze drivers racing the second stint and Steve managed to haul the Mercedes ahead of the Bentley - Stephen A having a tricky time of it. Meanwhile, Scott had put MOZZIE right back in the race, his 20 minutes ending with the Aston a lap ahead of WHAM!

   

The clouds drifted over the track at the start of the third stint, but the conditions remained mostly dry and all teams stayed on Hard tyres. The five cars on track were circulating quickly - Duncan focusing on the speed of Mike McCann in the Slimline Bentley. However, the fastest cars on track were Oliver's AMG and Jeremy's Bentley, both trying to make up on lost time. Eventually, the Écurie Escargot Aston re-joined the race in last place, about ten laps adrift of MOZZIE. There was a good mid-race rhythm, with six experienced drivers making the most of their time on track. By the end of the first hour, Duncan had stretched Smooth Ops' lead by a lap and Oliver had a great session to get Gearzilla up to third - sitting on a twelve lap gap to second and a twelve lap gap to fourth. Andy had reduced the deficit to MOZZIE to just 3 laps and 12 laps to WHAM! in fourth...

   

Ryan was back on for Smooth Ops - Simon arriving later than expected and would be driving the final two stints. It was Rob's job to try and keep Slimline in the hunt and - if necessary - defend from Terry in the Gearzilla AMG. Ash was driving the WHAM! Bentley, John for Écurie Escargot and Matthew for MOZZIE, so a highly-experienced line-up to capture on video...




Ryan was flying, yet again, but Ash was matching his pace. Terry and John weren't far off, but both Rob and Matthew lost time. Track conditions were not longer fully-dry,  the Hard tyres not as precise as Softs, but lasting a little longer. Écurie Escargot would try the Softs, as would MOZZIE.

   

This was a session that set up the race perfectly for the final two stints, probably another 35 minutes or so...

[Kevan]

That looked good fun

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In short, the fourth stint moved Smooth Ops out of reach. Although Simon hadn't driven a lap on the circuit he designed, he wasn't going to lose a 21 lap advantage, even against Ollie and Mike. Ash's magnificent stint - 103 laps vs Ryan's 102 - transformed WHAM! Racing's race. Sure, they had their rookie Bronze driver back next, but WHAM! now sat 19 laps ahead of the recovering Écurie Escargot and just 5 behind Gearzilla in the last of the podium places...

   

The leaders hit 400 laps just moments after the 80 minute mark - that gave us about 175 to go. Simon was soon in the groove and banging in some quick laps with the pink and silver AMG. Ollie was not hanging about either, throwing the Slimline Bentley round the track. Also on a quick pace was Stephen in the Écurie Escargot Aston. He sensed an opportunity with his namesake in the WHAM! Bentley and Steve in the Gearzilla AMG - could he drag his team back into the fight for a podium place? Finally, Scott was in the MOZZIE car, trying to hang on to the Aston Martin in front and ease back into the pack...

   

As the race hit 100 minutes and the final driver change of the night, it was Écurie Escargot who had won the stint, followed by Slimline and Smooth Ops - Ollie taking just 2 laps out of Simon's lead. The Bronze drivers for WHAM! and Gearzilla had limited their losses to Stephen's rampaging Aston - the Escargots were now 11 laps behind WHAM! and 13 laps behind Gearzilla in third. Looking at the driver line-up for the final short stint of 15-17 minutes, the only realistic excitement was that two lap gap between third and fourth.

At the front, Simon was enjoying his double stint. Behind, Mike was probably more preoccupied by Oliver's charge with the Gearzilla AMG, although he was never going to lose 15 laps in a little over 15 minutes. Jeremy for WHAM! and Andy for Écurie Escargot were on a good pace, but everyone was focused on bringing their cars home - and mostly did a good job, although MOZZIE had yet another trip to pits for repairs.

As the chequered flag fell at 576 laps, Smooth Ops celebrated a fine win by twenty-one laps. Slimline followed up last month's victory with second and Gearzilla delivered another podium place. WHAM! were fourth, Écurie Escargot wondering what could have been in fifth and MOZZIE sixth...

   

   

Huge congrats to Ryan, Simon and Duncan on their Easter win...

       

       

       

That result leaves the 2025 WHO GT championship table looking like this...

   

The next round is another two-hour race on Wednesday 21 May, with the double-points championship finale  a four-hour race at the GT Saturday on 21 June.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable evening. Special thanks goes to the set-up crew, the Race Control team - especially James - and to all those who stayed behind to pack away at the end. We couldn't do it without you.

One final Easter-themed item... 

   

The church attached to the Barn was featured in a BBC Sussex piece over the weekend (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2j1gv9e4o). During the 1980s, the church ceiling was painted with a replica of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco and continues to attract coachloads of visitors to Goring every year. The main voice in the interview is of church secretary Anne, who has been an honorary member of the WHO team since 2009 - looking after us as we set up the club and throughout the past 15 years. It's definitely worth a read and a listen. And if you wanted to visit, details are here: https://english-martyrs.co.uk/our-church/visiting-us/