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Four Return to Farnborough
#1

   

Four of us returned to the delightful St Peter's School in Farnborough - the home of Farnborough Park Scalextric Club and also where WHO stalwart Gareth was a pupil back in the 80s. This was the second round of the 2025 Slot Rally GB Championship, sponsored by Staffs Slot Cars UK. Our trip was the sequel to last autumn's Five Go Mad in Farnborough, with Mike D missing from the line-up this time as he his day of T20 cricket took priority. That meant Jeremy kindly picked up the other three WHO racers from the Barn and swapped a boring drive on the A23, M25 and A3 for a thrilling jaunt on country roads through the West Sussex / Hampshire badlands.

We arrived in one piece and perfectly on time, commandeered the teachers' staff room as WHO HQ and were soon on the stages. Jeremy and myself would join local Farnborough racers Lawrence and Toby, with Terry and Phil racing in a group of five. Here are our cars, with Jeremy's in the cardboard box...

       

The eight stages were spread over two classrooms this year and our plan was to whizz round one room and perhaps add a stage from room two before lunch. That all depended on Lawrence not being called into action, fettling the stages. He is the caretaker of both the school and all the club tracks stored in the cavernous basement.

   

Stage One for us was School Park, a Scalextric Sport figure of eight that also serves as a public track at school events. It proved a nice shakedown stage to get us all up to speed...

   

My quartet of cars began with an SCX Abarth 124, progressed to the Ninco Porsche 911SC, Avant Slot Galant and Ninco Subaru...

   

On that first track, that progression worked to plan and the 7-lap times were progressively quicker.

Stage Two was 'Snow' - an end-to-end SCX Classic layout...

   

This was the one stage that required some serious work to get it going, so it was most convenient that Lawrence was in the first group to race on the track. After a hunt for a missing soldering iron and a bit of lateral thinking, Snow was running smoothly for me and Jeremy, although Toby and Lawrence weren't entirely happy with their controller and car combinations...

   

Next up for us was the delightful Hill Farm - a routed track with some superb scenery and a tricky succession of hairpins climbing a hill. This is one of Lawrence's masterpieces...

   

Lawrence and Toby finally sorted their controller issues on this stage, with some good times for all of us. I seem to remember I struggled on this stage last year - possibly trying to drive it too fast. I tackled it in a more measured way this time and scored the only sub-60 second run of our group with the big red Galant...

   

My Subaru took a few tenths out of Jeremy's Peugeot 208, a WHO Modern Class battle that was shaping up nicely...

   

That one done and dusted, we moved on the the final stage in the first room - the Car Park. This was updated from last November, sporting a newly painted road surface, new copper tape and a rather necessary retaining wall installed around the edges. It remained an mind-boggling array of loops...

   

I can't say I enjoyed this stage last time, but something clicked on a second running. I got progressively quicker, finishing with a nice run for the Impreza...

   

The first room done and dusted, we decided to tackle one final stage before lunch. The Airfield was free, so we jumped on there...

   

I was first up and 'cleaning the stage' on this one - as I did on School Park earlier. Whether it was going first, or the need for lunch, this wasn't my best stage of the morning - I misjudged braking points at the end of the straight and was concerned I was well off the pace. It turned out that I wasn't too shabby, but could have done better...

   

However, this is a visually stunning stage (another of Lawrence's creations) and had new aircraft models added since last time, plus a fully-featured driver station hidden in the control tower. Both Jeremy and I took the opportunity to take some photos before retiring to the staff room for lunch...

   
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#2

It was back to action after lunch with a run through Gymkana - two fiendish routed boards connected by some Scalextric Classic pieces, including Goodwood chicanes...

       

The pictures are of Phil and Terry's group, who followed a bit later in the afternoon. I find the Gymkhana section delightful - and enjoy keeping the power in round the loops in true Ken Block style...

   

The other end is trickier - a leap over the perspex bridge, bumpy sections that can lift a guide out of the slot, plus the sharp right through the loading bay where cars can bottom-out...

   

My Subaru won't turn through the loading bay, so I had to try and bounce it off the wall - a technique that worked twice, but not the third time...

   

The penultimate stage for our group was a blast through Crate Lane - Ninco off-road pieces linking two Ninco loops...

   

This should have been bread-and-butter for WHO racers with cars set up to tackle our Jupp's Farm stages. My two Ninco cars ate it up, with the Galant and Fiat not far off the pace. However, quickest of all was Jeremy's SRC Porsche 914, which skipped over the rough stuff with ease!

Our final action of the day was on the Mini Hill Climb, probably my favourite track last November, but would prove my nemesis this time...

   

Jeremy went first and would sweep the stage - and was not entirely satisfied with his performance. After Toby and Lawrence completed the rally, I went last. I scouted all the challenges of the up-and-down stage with the Fiat and followed with a clean run for the Ninco Porsche...

   

Things were going really well with the Galant until I put a wheel on the grass at the start/finish line and precipitated a big off that screwed up the braids, losing 25 seconds on repairs that put paid to an otherwise decent day for the Avant Slot car. But that's rallying! I followed with a careful run for the Subaru - 2.5 seconds slower than the Porsche, but no disasters and hopeful of a strong finish in Modern class. All-in-all a very enjoyable day and a good performance from my four cars...

   


Most other groups still had at least two more stages to finish, so after a sit down in the staff room, we helped Lawrence and Toby start packing away. The tour of the basement was a highlight of the day - an incredible facility for any slot car club. Terry and Phil's group was last to finish - and then it was a relatively short wait to the results were in. We were entertained by some drone action on the airfield - footage being taken for a feature on the WRC website (yes, really!).

Finally, it was time for results. Classic saw both myself and Jeremy in the top ten. Jeremy was the sole WHO runner to finish in the 80s-90s top ten, but we'd both be in the Modern top five - me fourth and Jeremy first! A Slot Rally GB winner...

   

Jeremy still had a grin on his face when we dropped Phil off at Arundel station...

   

What a fabulous day... and only three weeks to wait until the next round in St Albans.
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#3

And I took the medal to bed with me!

I love puttering with gears
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#4

...but was it all just a dream?

I love puttering with gears
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#5

...Woodcote was keeping a mental note of our Modern car times throughout the day, and by his reckoning, his Ninco Impreza was ahead of my SA Peugeot by a few seconds. So when I was named the winner of the class at the prize giving, it was both a shock to have beaten some of the stalwarts of the rally scene, but also a surprise to have been placed ahead of my team mate. 

Something didn't feel quite right, so in the car on the way home, we decided we should exchange the pictures we took of our completed time-sheets to see if there had been a mistake on the scoring or any ambiguous handwritten times. As far as we could tell, Andy was a few seconds ahead of me. I contacted Seb from the Abergavenny club who organise the series, and he thinks he can see where the error has crept into the results spreadsheet that put me at the top. So he will be double checking everything before publishing the official results in the next day of so.

Anyway, I got to live the dream for a few hours, and enjoyed the bragging rights on the journey home! And it's only made me more determined to win it on the track next time, not in the spreadsheet.

I love puttering with gears
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#6

As so it was...

   

The rest of the results from Farnborough are here: https://slotracer.online/community/showt...7#pid43617

Battle resumes in St Albans on Sunday 22 June, then a home round in Worthing on Saturday 19 July.
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#7

That's tight at the top  Cool

Life is like a box of Slot cars... Cool Drinkingcheers
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#8

I had a couple of offs on the Gymkana stage, and you can't afford to do that in this company.

I love puttering with gears
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