Low Voltage.

A reduced entry this week for NSR Classic, just nine drivers, but the racing was still close, in the midfield at least.

Julian was in a class of his own and dominated proceedings, whilst Josh, who would normally be challenging for the win, decided to confuse everyone by choosing to run at 11 volts “to make it more interesting.” Hmm…

By accident or design, Josh’s racing did indeed spice things up. 2nd place in Heat 1, 4th in Heat 2, 2nd again in Heat 3, next-to-last in Heat 4 followed by a 4th and 5th. The consequence was that he finished an uncharacteristic 5th overall, 8 tenths behind Terry and a tenth ahead of Phil. It was a good battle, but was, er, a little odd.

Nonetheless, it leads your correspondent to wonder out loud – is there potential to run the occasional handicap race at Molesey? We have adjustable power to each lane, so could knock a volt or bits of one off the quickest guys and try to contrive a multi-driver dead heat. All it needs is a dictatorial handicapper happy to shoulder the complaints from those unhappy with their given handicap and tell them to “STFU and get on and race.” I reckon it’s got legs, although deciding who gets given the job of crawling around on the floor in the dust and pubes adjusting power supplies every heat might cause a few rumbles of dissent.

With Josh out of the equation, David and Ed were left to battle for the second step of the podium. Ed had the edge on pace, but lost out on consistency, a crash and a poorly judged restart after a track-call resulting in him finishing a couple of seconds behind David.

Phil raced consistently to finish comfortably at the top of Group 2 and 6th overall, his ever-improving lap times making him now a regular midfield competitor. The bonus championship point for fastest lap in his group was his reward.

So all in all a good night’s racing, even if at times it was a bit strange. Add volts? Remove volts? Don’t dismiss the idea out of hand…

PS. Apologies for the delayed race report this week. There’s probably a good Latin or medical name for your correspondent’s tardiness, but in layman’s terms it’s simply described: he’s f*cked. Nothing an extra volt or two won’t fix!