1/24 BOC 2025 British Open Championship
James Cleave’s winning car
It has a Horky chassis, the motor is a Cahoza set up with a Koford 0.518” diameter 48° armature : Gearing 7:41 : Tyres Klingon : BPA Lola body
Open Group 12
The second class of the weekend was Open Group 12. The first group
qualified on Saturday evening, James Cleave taking top spot with a 4.775 second lap.
After the 6 Sunday had qualified we had 21 competitors who raced in 3 groups of
7.
Bob Budge won the C final on 233 laps, 10 laps ahead of by Mike Thomson.
Keith Gibson won the B on 249 followed by Barry Gilzean and Ricky Gowan, the top 3 so far.
James Cleave was quickest right from the start of A final, with Josh Bryant the closest challenger. Just a few laps in Simon Scott was out, the biggest crash of the day producing a comprehensively bent chassis. By the end James had scored 274 laps, just short of the record he set in 2024. Josh took second with 255, while Keith’s B final score was good for third overall. Gavin Wills took 4th overall ahead of Barry Gilzean.
faster than the record he set in 2024. He was followed by Josh Bryant 239 and Gavin Wills 228. Steve Sargent was next up exactly matching Simon’s B final winning score, they were joint 4th.
Open Group 12 -
A final cars from Gavin Wills, Josh Bryant, Richard Mack, Ron Kiddell, David Sargent and Simon Scott
Eurosport
The third and fastest class of the day was Eurosport. Gavin Wills took
top qualifying spot with 3.928 seconds.
Ricky Gowan won the C final with one of
the few strap motored cars in the field. Ricky completed 252 laps with Roger Smart
second on 247.
David Sargent won the B final with his strap motored car on 273 laps.
He was followed by Ron Kiddell on 267 and Steve Taylor on 262. This class did feature
rather a lot of track calls, the B in particular had a lot of cars in the netting.
The
A final settled into the usual pattern of James Cleave pulling away from the field.
Top qualifier Gavin Wills spent some time in the pits. However, come segment 6
on black, James was going very slow on some parts of the lap, and the closely matched
Simon Scott and Richard Mack were catching him quite quickly. Whatever the problem
was cleared and James was back up to full speed for the final two segments to win
with 314, with Simon on 299 after a troubled black lane run with Richard just over
a lap behind. David and Ron’s B final runs were good for 4-
The A finalists cars -
Simon second Richard third
Winner -
The top 3 cars
Note the different ecom positions.
The Mack Chassis is designed to give the option of any of the positions. Richard says he prefers the rear mounting position because the draft from the motor helps cool the ecom.
James Cleave’s winning car used a Cleavetech chassis. It has a Veloce brushless motor rewound by James and a Mid America Remora Ecom :gears 5:40 (72 pitch) It used Alpha Pirana tyres and a BPA BMW body.
Congratulations to James for dominant wins in all 3 classes and a big thank you to him for organising the meeting. Thanks to all those who helped make it a great weekend, particularly race controllers James, Ant Hawkes and Marc Lyons and special thanks to Sammy for the catering.
We look forward to the second round of the 1/24 BOC at Pinewood in April and to
more racing at the National Centre -
Chris Frost
© Copyright British Slot Car Racing Association 2025 , photos copyright C.Frost 2025 All rights reserved