Four times during the year the Southend Slot Club suspends its regular Tuesday race evenings and holds a different night of racing. The Summer event in 2018 featured two separate competitions.
The first half of the evening was given over to a Formula Libre event. The idea of this is that members could bring along and race absolutely anything, particularly aimed at using cars that don't fit into any of the multitude of classes that we normally run.
Some members ran several different cars - to their eternal credit, cars with little or no chance of winning any of the 12 lap heats.
There were a couple of problems with the copper rails which undoubtedly handicapped Alan and John, causing both to finish the event lower than they should have. Richard M. brought a Jaguar that could have strolled to first place but didn't use it, leaving a very, very lucky Barry to take first place courtesy of the aforementioned scenarios, plus the use of a Porsche 917. kindly supplied by Mr. Shawe.
Here is the result of the Formula Libre event:
|
FORMULA LIBRE |
12 laps heats |
|
1st
|
Barry Boor
|
|
|
2nd
|
Richard Mack
|
|
|
3rd
|
John English
|
|
|
4th
|
Graham Robinson
|
|
|
5th
|
Alan Shawe
|
|
|
6th
|
Joël Thura
|
|
|
7th
|
Richard Powell
|
|
|
8th
|
Ian Castleton
|
|
|
9th
|
Vic Bettell
|
|
|
10th
|
Colin Wilkinson
|
|
|
11th
|
Tony Avis
|
|
|
12th
|
Noel Taylor
|
|
|
F.L.
|
Richard Mack
|
8.482 secs
|
In part two of the evening we ran one of our popular roulette events, this time using Group C Le Mans-type sports cars. We each put a car onto a board with numbered spaces. Then in each of the 4 minute heats the four drivers threw two dice and ran the car that was standing on the number on the board that the two dice added up to - as long as it wasn't their own car. Also, we threw the dice again if the car that the dice chose was a car we had already driven.
Once again, track problems ruined John's final run which certainly cost him at least a couple of laps.
The cars were very well matched, apart from one that was noticeably slower and one that was, by some distance, quicker than the rest. But as usual, the cream rises to the top with Alan and
Joël taking the top two positions.
So here is how the event ended:
|
Group C Roulette |
4 x 4 minute heats |
|
1st
|
Alan Shawe
|
104.25
|
|
2nd
|
Joël Thura
|
102.35
|
|
3rd
|
Graham Robinson
|
100.16
|
|
4th
|
Richard Mack
|
100.09
|
|
5th
|
Barry Boor
|
99.28
|
|
6th
|
Ian Castleton
|
97.26
|
|
7th
|
Colin Wilkinson
|
97.16
|
|
8th
|
Noel Taylor
|
96.23
|
|
9th
|
Vic Bettell
|
96.20
|
|
10th
|
Tony Avis
|
96.00
|
|
11th
|
John English
|
93.27
|
|
12th
|
Richard Powell
|
91.09
|
|
F.L.
|
Alan Shawe
|
8.983 secs
|
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