Despite receiving no reply to a phone call and several texts to Harlow on the Saturday afternoon, we did know that Vlad hadn't won the Scalextric World Championship. There had been a previous event in Harlow over the summer and the fastest race time of 24.493 seconds for a 10-lap race was set by 14-year-old Ted Trim. Remember that name...
By the time we'd packed away and I'd driven home, I'd left a couple more messages for the Harlow organiser - but with no response. It was now three hours after the end of our event and I had a BBC journalist on the phone asking me what had happened and who was World Champion. They were very keen to follow up their earlier story, which had proved very popular. All I could tell them was what had happened in Worthing, but that was it...
The journalist had already dug out a business phone number for Ted Trim's dad and I gave them the phone number of the Harlow organiser to chase mercilessly. An hour later later I had a very short text from the Harlow guy - no-one had beaten Ted's time. I passed that info on to the BBC journalist, who got to work...
Ted and his dad were interviewed at length that night on BBC Radio Five Live - the BBC's national news & sport station. A new BBC website article started to trend - and became one of the top three most-read stories on the BBC News UK website in the following 24 hours. Video clips from the Barn were added, plus quotes from Ted and his dad. The article is still on the BBC site:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35145243
At 3.30pm on Sunday, the Harlow organiser re-appeared, posting on a forum thread to say he'd spoken to the BBC and would be sending them some photographs the following day. Of course, the story would no longer be news by then - at least not on the BBC.
The Mirror - the UK's second-largest circulation daily newspaper - had picked up the story from the BBC website and phoned me Sunday morning. They put an
article on their website and a small write-up appeared in the early editions of the paper on Monday.
Parts of the BBC website story were also re-hashed on various news and tech websites around the world - as is the way with news these days. Nearer to home,
The Argus - the Sussex regional daily newspaper - ran a story in their Monday edition, using the press release and pictures I'd sent out when I got home Saturday, plus a brief follow-up phone call that evening. The web version is
here.
BBC Radio Sussex also interviewed me on air Monday morning. And then - apart from a piece in the weekly
Worthing Herald over Christmas - it was old news. Or so I thought.
The Scalextric team had followed what happened - they were delighted. A few weeks after Christmas, I heard from Sarah again. She'd had Ted Trim's mum on the phone, extremely annoyed that her son hadn't received the big prize promised by the "Scalextric member of staff" at the Harlow event. Sarah had tried to contact the Harlow organiser, but with no luck. Could I help?
The long and short is that Scalextric made sure Ted and his mum were more than happy. However, the story of the two December events showed how something like the Scalextric World Championship can work well and how it can be a total nightmare. Of course, our expections were high after the 2014 event and I do have experience of working with the media on events like these, so I understand what they need and the tight deadlines journalists work with. With all the best intentions, the Harlow organiser didn't. To be honest he'd wanted to piggy-back on what we'd achieved the year before, but wasn't prepared to discuss his end of the bargain until the night before - and even then the conversation was about how he didn't take any notice of the Scalextric guidelines on track layout, car prep or format... the only aim was to "beat the Aussies at their own game". Ouch!
Because of this sort of attitude - and other hosts pocketing the kit and making little (or no) effort putting on an event - the Scalextric World Championship was on its way out even before the management change. Which is a shame. What we did in Worthing in 2014 and 2015 showed what was possible with the existing format and the support Scalextric offered - even after the savage staff cuts and just one very stretched member of staff as a contact at Margate. It needed the hosts to play ball and to run things in the spirit of a fun worldwide event set up to promote Scalextric to a wider audience...
With more involvement from Scalextric it might have been possible to tap into any public relations skills the hosts had - and share that knowledge with hosts that didn't. At the time, Hornby had no in-house media department.
I guess many factors led to the demise of the championship - and I can't see anything similar starting up any time soon. That said, the Scalextric team have worked hard with promotion in the past couple of years - taking roadshows to numerous big motoring events and various huge shopping centres; supplying organisers of public events with prizes and materials; increasing the quality and quantity of their in-house social media content (which is where most of their potential audience hangs out); and getting the latest kit into the hands of vloggers, bloggers and social media influencers. There has even been a return to TV commercials on children's channels. Marketing is all about seeing return on investment - and the Scalextric World Championship just didn't cut it, despite our best efforts in Worthing.
Our two events in Worthing in 2014 and 15 were incredibly good for the growth of digital racing at WHO, boosting the club in lots of different ways - and we do have those fabulous memories to savour!