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2024 dates for all our club events have been confirmed with the Barn - 23 Wednesdays and 5 Saturdays, a record total of 28 visits to the Barn next year.

HO races are the first Wednesday evening of each month, plus we welcome back the November Drag Racing and fun night.

Scalextric Digital events include four Nascar & Legends evenings (a perfect introduction to digital racing), four GT Championship races (3 Wednesdays and one Saturday), plus the quartet of autumn Saturdays - the WHO Goodwood Revival, Birkett Relay and pair of Tin Top Saturdays.

New for 2024 are Slot Rally Wednesdays in May and October. These sandwich a Saturday Slot Rally event on 27 July - a round of the re-booted Slot Rally GB Championship.

Race fees remain at £3 (£2 under-16s) for Wednesday evenings and £6 (£4 under-16s) for our Saturday club events. Discounted season tickets - HO, Digital and combined - will be available to purchase from December.

WHO 2024 fliers have been printed and will be available at all WHO events at the Barn and on our travels. If you want to take a few to distribute, let us know.

More details about the HO, Digital and Slot Rally formats and rules for 2024 will follow over the next couple of weeks.

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We'll start with the 2024 debut of WHO Slot Rally - featuring two Wednesday evening club nights on 29 May and 23 October, sandwiching a round of the 2024 Slot Rally GB Championship on Saturday 27 July.

All the details, dates, formats and rules are in this six-page pdf document...

WHO SlotRally 2024 Info.pdf Size: 1.23 MB  Downloads: 146

You do have plenty of time to prepare for these events, but if you want to wait and experience Slot Rally before committing to buying anything, there will be club cars and controllers on each of the Wednesday evening stages.

You can enter one car in each class - Classic Rally, 80s/90s Rally and Modern Rally. There is vast array of Slot Rally cars available - plus plenty of scope for modifications in the rules. However, here are a few tips for starting out...

• Slot Rally cars must have an in-line motor, no magnet and must be a 1:32 scale model of a real rally car with driver and co-driver figures.
  
• There are plenty of tuning tips and buyers guides on SlotForum, harking back to the golden years of Slot Rally GB.
  
• You'll be racing all your cars one after another on each of the stages. It can be useful to have three cars with similar characteristics, so you are building on the previous run, rather than having to completely re-adjust to a vastly different car.
  
• The mid-2000s Ninco rally cars with sprung guides and suspension can be competitive with the best slot rally cars (eg SRC, Avant Slot, NSR) and are available for a fraction of the price - around £25-40. A pair of racing rear tyres (eg NSR Super or Ultra grips) are essential, the addition of alloy rear wheels something to consider. The motor should also be glued in and some weight added near the guide and in front of the rear wheels, as required. These are also easy cars to drive - ideal for slot rally beginners.
  
• For those who like tuning cars, the current Teamslot rally range includes some utterly beautiful scale models which are fitted with a punchy long-can motor. They do need some fettling, but are definitely a lot of fun and can be very competitive. They are available for just under £50 at Pendles (don't forget our 10% club discount).
  
• The latest SCX and Scalextric rally cars look great are good fun - and the fastest 'out-of-the-box' example of each manufacturer will be recognised at each of our events. Of course, magnets must be removed and weight should be added. Tyres can be changed too. There are plenty of options to gradually modify your SCX and Scalextric models - including a complete overhaul with a 3D printed chassis - but modified cars won't be eligible for the SCX / Scalextric prizes.
  
• There's also no reason you can't run older late-80s and 1990s models. These are often as cheap as chips, but can be a lot of fun to drive... Scalextric, SCX and Ninco all produced models of the Renault Maxi Mégane and Toyota Corolla  - and these can be found for as little as £5-10 at swapmeets. Fit a pair of racing tyres and you're on the start line!
  

There will be some new boxed and used slot rally cars available for sale at the club over the next few months. But don't forget, club cars will be allocated to each of the stages in 2024 (and probably 2025). Any questions - just ask.

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January 2024 marks ten years since we started racing Scalextric digital at the Barn. A lot has changed since then, but the DNA of our digital racing remains having a lot of fun!

The 22-page guide to our 2024 WHO Digital racing contains all the dates, formats, driver gradings and car regulations. You can download it here:

2024 WHO digital guide.pdf Size: 1.01 MB  Downloads: 154

As always, we’ve tried to make our events accessible for new racers. However, we do highly recommend getting a few Nascar & Pioneer Wednesdays under your belt before moving on to the other events. These introductory evenings are strategically placed in pairs - at the start of the year in January & February and then before the autumn Saturdays in July & August.

Here are some of the highlights for 2024...

• The popular Nascar & Pioneer Legends Wednesdays feature in January, February, July and August. These remain fantastic fun and are the perfect introduction to our Scalextric digital racing. All equipment is provided and there are also championship points to be won!
  
• The WHO Digital GT Championship sees six GT teams race for two-hours at Wednesday evening events in March, April and May - with a four-hour climax to the championship in June. All sidewinder cars may now use vac-formed interiors as a Balance of Performance mechanism. Weather choices will be more random in 2024, including the chance of no changes.
  
• The WHO Goodwood Revival is back in September. The 1950s Sussex Trophy moves into the team race slot and TT Celebration becomes the pairs race, but otherwise the format is the same as 2022 and 23.
  
• The Birkett Relay gets its second running the following month. The day starts with a St Mary’s Trophy pairs race. The Birkett Relay begins with another Goodwood Class - the Kinrara Trophy. Each team runs a variety of cars during the race - and we use this format to create a 4-hour team race that lets us enjoy cars from various WHO Digital classes, including Carrera Classic Nascars, Scalextric 1975-1984 tin-tops and 1965-69 sports prototypes.
  
• The season ends with two Tin-Top Saturdays in November and December. These will feature a club car rotation, three-race BTCC competition, a Group A team race, a new Carrera Classic Nascar class, plus the Muscle Car Mondiale heats & feature format.
  
• One brand new event is a Wednesday night test session in August to help prepare your cars for the autumn Saturdays.
  

As always - any questions, just ask.

[BAracer]

I will definately be reviving the Bentley for the GT series.

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HO scale racing on four-lane Tomy AFX track remains the bedrock of our accessible, fun & family-friendly slot car club.

There are very few changes for 2024...

• WHO Mod & WHO Tuners run in January, April, July and October.
  
• The new Micro Scalextric chassis is now eligible in both Mod and Tuners, but beware the 34mm maximum width.
  
• Nascar & Gen6 Cup run in February, May, August and November.
  
• Formula One & F1 Classic Cup run in March, June, September and December.
  
• F1 Classic Cup reverts to a retro Tyco, Turbo, Life Like M and Micro Scalextric class.
  
• Drag racing returns to the Barn in November for an extra Wednesday evening.
  

All the HO rules and formats are now updated for 2024 on the WHO website: http://www.whoracing.org.uk/rules.html

Club cars and controllers are always available, although the club shop offers extremely good value packages to get new racers up and running.

   

November's drag racing Wednesday will offer two strips to race on...

• An AutoWorld first-past-the-post strip suitable for cars from any WHO class.
  
• A Micro Scalextric strip with computer timing for cars eligible in the 2022-3 Rock County Raceway proxy series. Car regs here.
  

RCR-spec drag cars will be available for sale and as loaners. Proxy entries will be most welcome!

Any questions, just ask!

[BAracer]

Now where did I put those drag cars...

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… I think I might have them in a box somewhere…