Confused.

Slot cars are simple things and the rules for Molesey’s Super GT class are meant to be equally simple, but judging by the confusion at this week’s Super GT scrutineering, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the rules had been written in an impenetrable code.

The scrutineer wasn’t confused, but several of the drivers were. “That’s not a GT” was the common, albeit accurate, observation-cum-protest directed at Terry’s Team Bryant Lola LMP, Peter’s Radical and the Tomster’s Group C Mercedes C9 and Group 5 Lancia Stratos, the protesters seemingly not having read any more of the rule sheet than its title, apparently blissfully unaware that “Super GT” doesn’t describe the class and is simply Molesey’s time-honoured name for its almost-no-limits class. Yes, it’s confusing, but the first rule of racing is “read the damned rules!” When does a GT not need to be a GT? When it’s a Molesey Super GT, that’s when…

Still, confused drivers or not, all the cars were sufficiently close to complying with the rules that the scrutineer let them out to race, “sufficiently close” reluctantly being accepted as as close to legal as their builders would ever get them without some sort of divine intervention by a higher power.

Back for the first time this year was Team Bryant’s development department, with Terry the lucky driver tasked with race-testing one of Josh’s Slot.it Lola LMPs. There was some confusion showing though, because Terry appeared to have misunderstood his brief and spent Heat 1 testing the structural integrity of the Lola by crashing it into the track’s retaining wall at high speed, finishing the heat way down in twelfth position, far below the car’s potential.

Josh was in a class of his own, winning all six heats, setting a Super GT lap record in the process and taking an easy win, but behind him the best battle of the evening was for second place between Simon and David. David finished Heat 1 half a second ahead of Simon, Simon turned the tables in Heat 2 to pull half a second ahead, then David grabbed second place back in Heat 3 to take a lead of 1.79 seconds into the mid-race tea break. Heat 4 was costly for David when his controller lost power, a race stoppage necessary while a dodgy plug socket was identified and fixed. A quick track-call had limited David’s loss to around three seconds, but, coupled with Simon driving his fastest heat of the night, it was enough to lose him second place. David clawed a second and a bit back in the final two heats, but it wasn’t enough and second place was Simon’s by a scant 1.74 seconds.

Graham’s race didn’t go so well. An excellent Heat 1 had seen him finish in fourth place, a couple of seconds ahead of Ed and Alex, but he slowed gradually as the race evolved. Neil was the first to smell blood and began to chase him down, Ed got ahead in Heat 2, Alex in Heat 3, while Terry was also making his way up the leaderboard after belatedly realising that he’d been employed to race-test Team Bryant’s Lola, not smash it to bits.

Going into the final heat Graham still held sixth by four seconds, but his night ended badly, he drove his slowest heat and lost not only sixth place to a fast-finishing Terry, but seventh to Neil too.

Elsewhere, the battle of the Wheatley’s continued, dad Mark reversing his defeat of last week to take the honours over son Dexter, the Tomster got very excited when he scored a point for the fastest lap in his group, and car swapping continued in its debatably-legal fashion, adding to the general sense of confusion amongst those who were already confused by the when’s-a-GT-not-a-GT stuff.

Simon had been confused deciding whether to race his Scaleauto Viper or Slot.it Porsche so raced both, the Tomster’s always confused so raced both his Group C Merc and Group 5 Stratos, and Mario, perhaps confused by everyone else’s confusion, attempted to repeat Terry’s structural integrity testing, but in his case by testing the structural integrity of the track with what seems likely to be a contender for the “Most Violent Crash of the Year” award when he failed to brake at all at the end of the main straight and hit the wall so hard and loudly that your correspondent, quietly minding his own business nearby, is still nursing a mild case of PTSD. All in all it was an excellent night’s racing. Confusing for some, but excellent nonetheless.