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Our 2025 WHO Digital GT Championship sees six teams - led by our Gold-rated drivers - race over three two-hour races on Wednesday evenings, followed by a four-hour, double-points championship finale at our June GT Saturday.

The WHO GT cars run to our local interpretation of the DiSCA GT4 Scalextric Clubman rules, requiring mostly standard Scalextric parts to be used throughout. The older Sidewinder models are permitted to use a vac-formed interior as a Balance of Performance measure.

Teams are strictly Pro-Am - our driver ratings based on performances across all our WHO events and weighted towards individual races. There are six Gold and Six Silver 'Pro' drivers, with all other drivers rated as Bronze. Pro-Am means that at least one Bronze-rated driver must race on each team and must share the driving time equally. A two-minute driver change window straddles the end of stints at 20, 40, 60 and 80 minutes, giving six stints in a two-hour race. A three-driver team shares the six stints equally - two each. A four-driver team must share the six stints equally between Pro (Gold/Silver) and Am (Bronze) drivers, ie Bronze drivers must race at least three stints.

Twenty-four drivers turned up to race for Round One. Gold drivers Alex (WHAM/AST One) and Ryan (Smooth Operators) handed their teams over to deputies. After additional drivers were allocated, this was the line-up...

   


We started the season on Mike's tweaked Barns Hatch layout...

   

... which went together very nicely - without any of the issues we experienced the first time we built this track in August 2023. It is a fast track with some challenging corners and not the easiest for overtaking - a bit like the real-life circuit...

   

After a start of the season drivers' briefing, we were straight into Super-Pole qualifying - the six drivers would also start the race for their teams. Here's the fastest laps from the two-minute session...

   

Congratulation to Ollie - and the newly-branded Slimline team - on another pole position...

   

The Slimline Ford GTE may appear next time out, but Mike's trusty AMG GT3 did the business.

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Race Report - part 1

Our dice and software weather combination cooked up a forecast for the race. We would start with a damp track, with more rain coming - but when it would arrive and how heavy it would be was anyone's guess. Sensibly, all six teams started on Intermediate tyres...

   

600 laps on the Barns Hatch layout should take two hours in the dry, but maybe a little longer in the wet. We'd see. It was a strong opening stint, with the quick drivers from qualifying at the wheels of the two Bentleys, two Mercedes, an Aston Martin and a Corvette C6R. Ten minutes in and Mozzie had already been into the pits to fix the Corvette's rear wing - taking the opportunity to top up with fuel. At the front, Ollie was putting in sub 11-second laps and building a handy lead, nearly two laps over Terry in the Gearzilla Mercedes. Third was the Smooth Ops Bentley, in the hands of team captain Simon - he was five laps off the lead, but at the head of three cars on the same lap - Ash in the WHAM! Bentley and Isaac in the Écurie Escargot Porsche both chasing that third spot. Dean wasn't far behind, despite that unscheduled stop...

   

More unscheduled stops followed for WHAM! (wing) and Smooth Ops (axle), dropping them back a little, but giving them a chance to pump in a bit of fuel. Slimline and Gearzilla had to stop early for fuel, closing up all the gaps at the 20 minute mark - Slimline on 92 laps as Mike D took over, only two laps ahead of MOZZIE as Dean was able to go deep into the window to hand the Corvette over to Matthew. WHAM! were a further four laps adrift, Scott taking over from Ash and having Gearzilla breathing down their necks, Stephen Mc now at the wheel. Escargot were a lap behind that battle, John in the car after a strong opening stint from Isaac. Last were Smooth Ops, recovering from the axle repairs and with Duncan looking to close a gap three laps to the cars in front...

   

Pit stops for fuel were frustratingly long - over a minute for a full tank, but it does give plenty of time to change tyres in RCS64 and clean the real rubber on the car. This twenty minutes saw another group of six strong drivers dicing it out on track, often in close proximity and always behaving like gentlemen. It was exciting stuff. The luxury of a uniformly damp track was taken away after 29 minutes and rain started to fall. Not very heavily - the track remained officially 'Damp' with what seemed a very gradual shift towards 'Wet'. Those Intermediate tyres would remain the best choice, but for how long? Would anyone experiment with Wet tyres at the next stop?

   

The stint settled into a steady pattern as we hit the 40 minute mark - Mike D very slowly eking out a five lap lead for Slimline over Stephen in the Gearzilla Mercedes. Seven laps further back was John in the Écurie Escargot Aston Martin, just ahead of Scott in the WHAM! Bentley. MOZZIE were a lap behind in fifth, with Duncan ten laps in arrears after some more difficulties with the Bentley.

We saw some less experienced drivers in the third 20-minute stint, none less experienced than Stephen A for WHAM! and Kevin for Escargot - both having made their WHO Digital debuts just last month. However, they drove steadily and carefully, looking after the cars...

   

Steve P is a relatively new digital racer and he had the wheel at Smooth Ops - who'd gone with wets. These wore quickly on the still too-dry surface, giving Steve plenty of pit stop practice! Steve C (MOZZIE) and Rob A (Gearzilla) both have digital team race experience and looked to push on. However, the one Pro driver in the stint was Rob B, driving the Slimline Mercedes and stretching their lead decisively as we hit the hour mark.

The gap at the front was 12 laps - and then a 17 lap gap back to Écurie Escargot, Kevin driving perfectly to keep his team in third place. MOZZIE were two laps back in fourth, WHAM! five laps adrift in fifth and Smooth Ops sixth and six laps behind WHAM!

Here are the stint stats from the first hour...

   

272 laps was 28 shy of halfway - we would be racing beyond the two-hour mark.

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Race Report - part 2

As we started the second hour of the race, the two teams out front had a mismatch in their driver line-up - Mike M was arguably the weakest member of Slimline's quartet and Oliver the strongest for Gearzilla...

   

Although Oliver's Mercedes was the fastest car on track during this pivotal twenty minutes, Mike drove the Slimline car steadily and pretty quickly. A lap gained here and there was not enough for Gearzilla - and by the end of the stint, Mike would hand over to Ollie still with a five lap advantage, despite Oliver having not pitted and carrying on for a double-stint. In the battle for third, Andy and Jeremy both had excellent stints, Écurie Escargot now eight laps ahead of WHAM! and Pete putting Smooths Ops ahead of MOZZIE after a frustrating twenty minutes for Kev...

   

Oliver stayed on for a second successive stint, now racing Ollie for the lead. A long mid-stint refuel for Gearzilla meant the gap went out to eight laps at 90 minutes, around the same time Ash overtook Isaac to put WHAM! in the final podium place. That change took place on the track, but the Écurie Escargot Aston Martin was soon stranded in the pits with an unknown issue - after much panic, the problem was resolved, but the team briefly dropped to fifth place...

   

By the end of this fifth stint, Escargot were back to fourth, four laps behind WHAM! and six laps ahead of Smooth Ops. MOZZIE had recovered to just two laps behind fifth place. However, at the front, the gap remained five laps... Over forty minutes of hard driving, Oliver had clawed back seven laps to the leaders.

What would normally be the final driver change was going to be the penultimate one. Mike D took over the leading Slimline Mercedes and would be up against Stephen for Gearzilla. Scott was up for WHAM! and John for the Escargots. Duncan was back in the Smooth Ops Bentley and Steve in the Corvette...

   

Despite deteriorating track conditions and the Intermediates starting to get really tricky, this was a massive twenty minutes for the leaders. Mike banged in an absolutely massive score to make the gap comfortable. Stephen's stint was no less impressive, putting in the fifth best score of the race, but he could not hang on to Mike's pace. At the end of the stint, Slimline had a 12 lap advantage over Gearzilla. The battle for third looked too close to call, with John having chased down Scott and the two teams both sat on 491 laps. Six laps behind were Smooth Ops, with MOZZIE having another scrappy stint and fallen out of contention...

   

Teams were given the option of drivers staying on or a fresh driver taking the final 10-15 minutes of the race. Only John stayed on for Écurie Escargot. Rob took over the lead car and Terry took the wheel for Gearzilla, but they were hoping for a miracle. WHAM! captain Jeremy gave himself the task of defending third spot and Pete was in the other Bentley, pushing hard to get into that podium scrap. Matthew would finish the race for MOZZIE.

At the front, Rob brought home the Slimline Mercedes with no drama. Terry took the risks and did whittle down the gap to nine laps, but that didn't make any difference to the outcome. However, there was plenty of drama behind. Jeremy soon pulled away from John, who was beginning to struggle with the Aston Martin and the track conditions. Pete, meanwhile, was having a great drive and had closed the gap. When John pitted for a splash of fuel and new Intermediate tyres, he came out exactly a lap ahead of Pete. A fabulous battle ensued, with Pete soon closing the gap on his superior Wet tyres, but then needing three minutes to get past as the two cars circulated in traffic. But get past he did and John could only try and hang on, being lapped just as the race ended, at 2 hours and 13 minutes.

   

Here's all the data from the race...

   

Huge congratulations go to Slimline on a fabulous win. And a round of applause goes to all the teams and drivers for putting on a great show right to the end of the race...

       

       

       

A big thank you to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable evening at the Barn. As always, special thanks goes to the set-up crew, race control team and everyone who stayed behind to pack away so quickly. We couldn't do it without you.

Round 2 is next month - on Wednesday 16 April. We'll be using Simon's layout we were supposed to build for January's Nascar & Legends night (you'll find the plan in the January event thread).

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Here are a couple of video clips from the race...

[BAracer]

A fun evening!

Apologies to the other members of WHAM! Racing for not spotting the need to fit wet tyres when the track turned from damp to wet. I will know for next time that this configuration is non-negotiable! Scott suffered the most, but it only became apparent to me once I was at the trigger.