[woodcote]

   

The first race of a busy two months at the Barn saw the return of the super-fast WHO Mod cars. This is the penultimate time we'll race the Vipers in their current guise - the Pro10 traction magnets will be downgraded to Pro4 from next January. With the cost of a new Viper car creeping up to £60, we're hoping the weaker magnets will keep those armatures cool and the current crop of cars will last for many seasons to come.

   

Simon's track plan from July 2015 was rescued from the archives. With the bridge and succession of short straights, this one can't be raced successfully flat out - although the Pro10 traction magnets come into their own in maintaining frightening speed through the corners...

   

Twenty-seven racers took part, including WHO debutants Fred, Ian, Sathya and Mark. They would be racing Mega-G+ cars along with Simon and Kev. Of our other rookies, Stephen had his new 2026-spec Pro4 Viper to test out and James borrowed a full-fat Viper from Gareth - Dylan's usual race car. Apart from Kevin's Bulldog, all the rest of the cars were Pro10 Vipers...

   

The first round of heats were hit and miss. Some drivers were being cautious, others trying to find the limit of adhesion and going beyond it. There were the typical sounds of car hitting perspex, stripped pinions and axles popping. After a rapid fourteen heats, everyone had two scores on the board and the top of the table looked like this...

   

Pete was a smidgeon ahead of Gareth, with Jerome, Andy and John locked together a lap and a half back. Scores and lap times were significantly quicker than 10 years ago. Isaac was ahead of Ollie in the battle for junior honours, with James ahead of Stephen as the top two rookies - both enjoying their first tastes of WHO Mod machinery and driving the Vipers very well...

   

The second half of qualifying saw Andy bang in 29.6 in white - the best score of the evening so far. That jumped him up to provisional pole, with a 28.85 in red setting the target for his rivals. It was a select bunch that had three clean runs in the bag - errors, mechanicals and plain bad luck had dropped some of the faster Vipers down the grid and putting on huge pressure for the final run. Gareth, Deborah and Keith had lapped in the 3.7 and 3.8 range - significantly faster than Andy, Pete and Jerome - but hadn't strung together the 2-minute heats they needed to challenge for pole.

Added to the drama was a power drop in white lane, affecting about a quarter of a lap. That harmed Jerome's chances of pole, but seemed largely resolved when Pete had a crack in the final heat - his 27.3 left him two laps behind Andy...

   

Some very tight battles there, none more so that the rookies running Tuners cars, who would kick off the finals.

But would we be seeing some of the fast Tuners runners recover from disappointing heats and cause some surprises in the top finals?

   

Nine cracking finals gave us the usual levels of excitement, joy and pain. For a time it looked like Keith was going to make it all the way from the D Final to have a crack at the race win, but he faltered in the B Final...

   

The A Final was breathtaking - Andy getting a couple of meters at the start and staying there, despite Pete's best efforts. All four drivers were on great form and as the chequered flag fell, all four were separated by not much more than a lap...

   

Congrats to Andy for the win, to Isaac for the Junior medal and Kev for the Tuners victory - just beating top rookie Simon M...

   

And that gives us this championship table with only October's race to go...

   

A big thanks to everyone who came along and made it another great night at the Barn. Apologies for the brief race report - we have a solution for that coming next month.