Nobody Does It Better.

Molesey GT this week, the club’s fastest class, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that it would all be over nice and quickly and everyone would get home in time for several hours’ sleep before needing to get up for work or school in the morning. You’d be forgiven, but you’d be utterly wrong.

The evening started well enough, everyone arriving by 8pm and putting in a decent number of practice laps, although Alex was struggling badly with a recalcitrant TruSpeed controller which made his NSR McLaren 720S extremely difficult to drive. Lee spent a while with it and managed to find a setting that was slightly better than dreadful, but it was far from perfect and Alex’s race was ruined pretty much before it had even started.

By some small miracle, the race started not far away from 9pm, Neil in Group 1 comfortably ahead of Tom and Alex, Alex doing a decent job with his dodgy controller to stay on the tail of Tom.

Young Tom was then tasked with getting Group 2 to line up for their first heat, a difficult job at the best of times. Despite his best efforts at imposing discipline, nobody took a blind bit of notice. Don’t worry, Tom, it’s not you. Nobody takes a blind bit of notice of anyone else either. Where’s Frank and his “CARS TO THE LINE!” when we need him? Hope you’re doing ok, Frank.

After Heat 3, Julian was leading, Lee was six seconds back, David a further five, then Simon, Tom and Alex, who’d fought gamely with his controller and was two seconds clear of Neil.

Now for a ten-minute tea break. Shouldn’t delay proceedings and everyone would still get home before Christmas.

So what happened? Alex, Tom and Simon disappeared outside for something or other. No probs, presumably none of their cars needed set-up work or repairs and they’d be back on schedule for Heat 4, which indeed they were. Tom, Neil and Alex lined up swiftly and completed their fourth heat, Tom taking a close win from Neil before again being told to persuade Group 2 to line up.

Poor Tom. Not a chance. Simon was now fiddling with his car, doing some sort of tweak or repair or secret go-faster modification, so the conversation elsewhere drifted away from getting racing done and on to the Queen’s death and what the new era would be called, now that it was no longer Elizabethan. Carolean apparently, although nobody at the club knew that on race night. The end to racing was looking ever further away. Again.

Still, Heat 5 eventually concluded, Julian’s lead at the head of the race now down to its most precarious, just one second ahead of Lee. Then came David, Simon, Tom and Neil. Alex had dropped entirely out of contention, losing thirty-five seconds. He would abandon his troublesome controller for Heat 6 and instead use an ancient one dragged out of an old box found underneath the track. Definitely a night for Alex to forget.

Heat 6 saw the night’s only real action, Alex winning his group’s heat, at last with a decent amount of control over his car, and Julian putting in his worst performance of the evening to see Lee beat him by five seconds and take the overall race win.

It was again a thoroughly enjoyable club night, but punctuality remains stubbornly elusive. If you want to enjoy your slot car racing, join us at Molesey. Nobody does it better.