Being the first Saturday in November it was time for some racing!!
The venue for this round was Als Paceway situated at Clontarf.
As the perfect summer day warmed up, the racers old and new started arriving around 2pm, mostly the mouldy and some new guys, Moby & Rhys.
As normal the track was buzzing with cars practising for the coming event or just running various models.
In Al`s new shaded entertaining area `show & share` was on, Terry & Eggy were discussing the finer points of MMK, Ocar & other fine bodies, looks like over the next 6mths some fine cars will be paraded about after they are finished. While Eggy was in the US he had the pleasure of going to the Electric Dreams warehouse and they lightened his wallet for him, much to his pleasure.
Terry had a grin like the Cheshire cat, in his hand was the Lotus Indy Phil had just completed adorned with a meticulous `bunch of snakes` exhaust system. I asked Terry if that was his new Osterrero car and now Phil was grinning like a participant at the Mad Hatters tea party.
The first heat of the day was Nascar, as the names rolled out the computer for the first heat. The normal Nascar style we have become accustomed to took place, and the usual deslots abounded. This is not one of, my favoured classes, you could say I loathe it to some extent, but my uncompetitive SCX of the last year was rebuilt in the morning and Phil’s SCX tuning applied to the motor and some homebrew urethane tyres of mine had actually made the car a pleasure to drive. The usual suspects seemed to have the heats in hand, namely Phil, Norm, Eggy & Kev
The last heat of the event proved to be the most colourful of even the whole day come to think of it.
Justin in all his glory was pouring forth enough words starting with F to actually support a third world country if we had a swear box. In true Nascar style his car didn’t seem to like the corners, running strait on a number of times per lap and at 20 laps well you get the idea.
In ended up like this.
After the Nascar class – it was relatively early and an impromptu `run anything class` was held with minimal laps while waiting for some regulars to arrive after work.
So after everyone had 4 races it was time for another set class.
The next class was NC1 rally – a well liked class for various reasons, as long as the car has an NC1 or NC8 motor it can be run. A few Ninco s were there like the Renault Meganes and Clios, the majority of the field is ninco cars with the afore mentioned motor, but the exotic of the group has to Eggy`s well sorted Lancia Stratos in ALITALIA livery, not only does it look the business, but in Eggs grasp it flies – your so fast Eggy!!! Also Phil’s Lancer in WixWacing silver/yellow livery, Norms NC1 rally weapon a Ninco 911RS & Captain Potty Mouths 307 were one to watch out for.
A fairly tame class with good racing, no real incidents apart from the cars seeming to change lanes ala Digital or was that just colour blindness from the marshals.
Blood sugar levels must have been low as time and patience took their toll on both the participants on & off the track – dinner was called, a smorgasbord of a feed lay await in Als new outdoor dining area – as we all refuelled for the latter half of the evening and gobbled up some of Jackie’s fantastic chocolate cake we got back to the racing. By this point with a couple of heats to go, the night was marching on.
Here is how the NC1Rally class ended up.
The next class for the evening was SLOT.IT modern GT. Basically any Slot.it that wasn’t a Classic Group C Le Mans car. Bodies with the Slot.it HRS & motor qualified as well also cars with a motor rating up to the Slot.it .RPM rating.
It was getting later than normal by now at the start of this and little did we know it, grip was going to be an issue.
The Ferrari F40 seemed to the weapon of choice by most, a few Nissan R390s, Mclaren F1GTR & a Sideways Riley, Phil was running an SCX F40 – only time will tell if RPMs will dominate and Norm had a SEAT Cupra GT body with a HRS under it.
Being a fast class, there was no doubt a bit of carnage would ensue, that coupled with multiple car pile ups the marshals and drivers alike had their work cut out for them.
After the first couple of heats a few of us were scratching our heads as to why grip levels were low, not even new MJKs made a difference as a few drivers tried tyre changes in between heats, sanding, old proven tyres – nothing seemed to help. I had trouble with a stiff guide which didn’t self-centre on deslot and caused myself & marshals some grief.
Norm was dominating in his HRS Seat Cupra GT and the lack of grip didn’t even cause a concern for him, Phil’s SCX F40 was giving the faster machinery a good run for their money.
As things got later after 10.30pm and the days racing was taking its toll on all present, it was concluded that the lack of grip was attributed to that the track was becoming colder and grip harder to come by at higher speeds. Norm kept up his frenetic pace as the rest of us tried to catch him. Patience frayed on all present we finally finished well after 11pm.
A dominant display by Norm and his Cupra GT and a consistent race pace from Phil saw the underdog at the pointy end of the field in the final results.
A good days racing with great company and good food – many thanks from us all to Al & Jackie for hosting.