2nd-Jun-25, 05:16 AM
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...