August 2013 in the Life of Ben (Blog)

  1. January
  2. February
  3. March
  4. April
  5. May
  6. June
  7. July
  8. August
  9. September
  10. October
  11. November
  12. December

40th Scalextric Club (20th August 2013)

A sleek field of GT cars grace the London Scalextric Club track tonight.

We used 5 of the 6 lanes and ran 3 minutes per race.

Green Lane

Screen was cancelled before I could write down the race details!

Fastest Lap Not sure
Laps: 17.??
Position: Last?
Crashes Not sure

Brown Lane

Lots of silly crashes.

Fastest Lap 8.96s
Laps: 18.30
Position: 5th
Crashes 5+

White Lane

Best lane but wasted it. Lots of consistently fast laps towards the end but the damage was done.

Fastest Lap 8.91s
Laps: 19.35
Position: 4th
Crashes 3

Blue Lane

Tried the blue club controller but it felt a bit ropey. Didn’t get used to it during this race.

Fastest Lap 9.02s
Laps: 18.20
Position: 3rd
Crashes 3

Yellow Lane

Didn’t feel fast but at least it was a clean race, so a good overall distance.

Fastest Lap 9.10s
Laps: 19.35
Position: 3rd
Crashes 0

Finals!

Blue Lane

Was that really my lap time? Maybe I looked at the wrong column. Either way, finally got the hang of this controller to have a clean, fast race. Everyone behind me crashed at least once.

Fastest Lap 8.73s?!
Laps: 12.00
Position: 2nd!
Crashes 0!

Red Lane

Close this lane instead of brown. Very slow marshall when I crashed in the loop due to the guide not centering.

Wasn’t quite on the pace of the leaders but might have pressured someone into a mistake later on. One crash is all it takes to go from hero to zero!

Fastest Lap 9.09s
Laps: 12.00
Position: 3rd
Crashes 1

Green Man Festival (18th August 2013)

It was awesome! Took some photos which might have turned out awesome.

(More to follow.) Can fill this in from calendar.

39th Scalextric Club (13th August 2013)

Class and Can-Am beasts stampede around the London Scalextric Club this evening. All the regulars were back from holidays so it was quite a full house!

We ran all 6 lanes but stretched the marshals a bit thin, using 1 less than normal.

Green Lane

Toughest lane but clean first race. Others had some slow marshalling as we are spreading them thin to run all 6 lanes. Pleased with this.

Fastest Lap 9.80s
Laps: 14.55
Position: 3rd
Crashes 0!

Brown Lane

Fastest Lap 9.46s
Laps: 14.95
Position: 4th
Crashes 1 small one

White Lane

Carnage! Kept bouncing off of other crashed cars so the Marshalls were already busy!

Fastest Lap 9.55s
Laps: 13.10
Position: 4th
Crashes Lost count!

Blue Lane

Fastest Lap 9.29s
Laps: 14.30
Position: 4th
Crashes 4

Yellow Lane

Fastest Lap 9.48s
Laps: 14.95
Position: 2nd
Crashes 2 little ones

Red Lane

Fastest Lap 9.41s
Laps: 15.30?
Position: 3rd
Crashes 1

Finals!

Blue Lane

Drove super clean with fast, consistent laps. Wasn’t tempted to over-stretch myself even as other drivers were slowly sneaking up on me. A couple of times the chasers got within a metre but then crashed!

Really proud of this performance and it was good enough to go through to the next final.

Fastest Lap 9.35s
Laps: 15
Position: 2nd!
Crashes 0!

Green Lane

Gah, ended up on the worst lane. I think lane choice is given in order of furthest distance covered during the main event and I probably covered the least distance.

Oh well, it was a privilege to get through to this level.

Fastest Lap 9.63s
Laps: 15
Position: Last!
Crashes 1 near the end

38th Scalextric Club (6th August 2013)

Nearly unlimited cars will be charging around the London Scalextric Club tonight. Thundersports by name and the performance of these mini monsters really live up to it!

For most of the evening I raced my NSR Mosler but Terry had also put together a Le Mans prototype for me to try out.

This event isn’t part of the club championship and some of the patrons are on long holidays at the moment. So we only had enough people to run 4 lanes, with 4 minute races per lane.

Brown Lane

Fastest Lap 8.95s
Laps: 25.70
Position: 1st!
Crashes 1 small one

White Lane

Rino cleaned the braids on my Mosler but says they need replacing. Tony’s track really eats the braids due to the sharp ramps to get up and over the bridge.

Fastest Lap 8.90s
Laps: 25.50
Position: 2nd
Crashes 3 small ones.

Blue Lane

Rino tinkered a bit more with my Mosler. He adjusted the tightness of the engine mount and body.

Fastest Lap 8.94s
Laps: 25.60
Position: 4th
Crashes 2 big spins.

Yellow Lane

Borrowed Mick’s Nissan R390. It’s a great car with plenty of torque without needing much throttle. Caught me out a few times but was getting the hang of it towards the end of these long races.

Fastest Lap 8.94s
Laps: 24.25
Position: 2nd
Crashes A few!