The First Nationals Winner
The very first National British Slot Car Championship was held at Watford in 1964. The event was run by ECRA, (the Electric Car Racing Association) - the Association that some years later changed its name to BSCRA.
The very first Grand Prix champion was Ken Stokes from the Bournemouth* club. His car was a "works" MRRC chassis was borrowed from Barry Adams (son of MRRC founder Alban Adams) on the day of the meeting- with some special tuning such as double pole pieces on the open frame motor and ball races. The winning car had some lead weight added under the back axle, apparently it was heavy compared with the other cars, although nobody seems to have measured the actual weight. The rear tyres were hollow rubber (rather like full size pneumatic tyres, except the interior wasn't under pressure). The gearing was 3.5:1. Contemporary reports say it looked very stable and quick round the corners.
Here's a couple of photos showing one of Ken's cars - thanks to Jeff Davies for the photos. This is not the actual winning car, but I believe it is very similar.
If anybody has got any photos of early Nats winners they like to share with the rest of us, it would be great to put them on web.
Chris Frost
*The Model Cars race report says he was from Bournemouth club, although Ken was more usually said to come from the Midsummer Norton club.
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