Tomster Trouble.
Crashes and marshals are an inevitable part of slot car racing. Sometimes they’re inconsequential, sometimes they’re not, and sometimes, just sometimes, they decide the outcome of the race. Tonight was, arguably, one of those times. And who got the blame? The Tomster of course, poor bugger.
Work commitments and spending too many evenings alone in his bedroom browsing porn has kept the Tomster away from the club for much of this year, but, for a change of scene and to give the blisters on his hand a chance to heal, he’d dragged himself away from Grandma Libby’s Pervy Palace for the evening and turned up at Molesey instead. By the time the night was out, he probably wished he hadn’t bothered.
At the head of the race it was Josh and Lee who fought hard for the win. Josh, fresh from competing in the ISRA World Championships in Italy, made the most of his good form by setting a new track record of 7.326, but despite having blistering speed over one lap and finishing 3.3 seconds ahead of Lee in heat 1, his consistency was letting him down. Lee turned the tables in heat 2 to take a two-second lead, Josh brought it back to 1.67 in heat 3, then Lee extended it again to 3.02 in heat 4. It was beginning to look like it was Lee’s race to lose.
Heat 5, and Josh in white lane immediately pulled out a small lead over Lee. Lee, in yellow lane, was having to try hard, and midway through the heat tried just a little too hard and crashed. Enter the Tomster.
Normally it takes just a second or two for a marshal to reslot a crashed car, but not this time. The Tomster, perhaps still trying to protect his aforementioned blisters, fumbled Lee’s car. Wary of the rule about not shouting at marshals, Lee kept his encouragement to the Tomster concise. “Yellow lane, you cu*t.” It didn’t help. Lee finished the heat almost a lap behind Josh, his lead overturned and now a deficit of 3.97. He clawed back 0.35 in the final heat, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough. Josh took victory and Lee could only rue what might have been. Cheers Tom!
