Racing started with the individual qualifying runs. James Cleave was top qualifier with 6.170, ahead of Will Stemman on 6.262 and Lee Parsons on 6.298. This compares with Will’s 2019 TQ time of 6.245 seconds.
A big talking point was the first brushless motor to race at the National. Bob Budge’s best qualifying lap was 6.951 sec. (His time with a conventional car in 2019 was 6.867 sec.) In the qualifying run you noticed Bob’s car was almost silent. With other cars on the track the silence was hidden by the high pitched scream of conventional cars. Later in the day we had the first brushless motor in a National final with Bob taking 8th in Main Grade.
1/32 Nationals 2021
F1 Championship 29 August
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The F1 class ran on Sunday, starting with best presented body which was won by Pat Skene. Here’s the winning car and Pat (complete with face mask) receiving the trophy from Woody. |
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Bob Budge and Richard Mack are the new national constructors champions - The constructors was an annual award back in the days of scratch built chassis that was sometimes awarded for innovations such as Gary Fletcher’s gyro cars. Brushless motors have been used in radio controlled racing for years, and there have been slot car experiments using off the shelf radio control electronics in the car and full power on the track all the time. The key difference in Bob’s cars is they are driven with a normal slot car controller which gets away from all the issues of having power on the track braids all the time. The clever bit that makes that happen is the electronic speed control (ESC) board which Bob is developing. What’s a brushless motor? There’s a full article about that due in a few weeks,
but very briefly - |
Main Grade Final
David Austin Ron Kiddell Stan Alton
Mark Witham Ant Hawkes Pat Skene
Aston Offer Bob Budge
The 33 racers were seeded into 4 heats, just as in Saturday’s racing. That produced the qualifiers for the final, James Cleave taking top spot with 218 laps, less than 2 laps up on Will Stemman. Ron Kiddell was the top main grade driver, an impressive 10th overall on 199 laps.
Main Grade Final
Aston Offer led the main grade final from the start, early in the race Stan Alton was the closest challenger, but David Austin recovered from a slow start to pass Stan for second. Aston went on to win by 2 laps from David followed by Stan and Ron. It was great to see a win for the youngest driver at the event and our current INTRO 32 champion.
Below
Aston’s winning car
The Overall Final
Will Stemman James Cleave Mark Harwood Josh Bryant Chris Thomas Paul Shepherd Ross Grogan PGreg Harwood B
James Cleave’s winning car -
Overall Final
James Cleave lead from the start to take the Grand Prix championship for the 8th time. Will Stemman was his closest challenger for the first 3 segments, but car troubles eventually consigned him to 8th. Chris Thomas took second, having had a slower first half, the 2015 champion matched the winner’s pace over the last 4 segments to finish 6 laps behind James. Mark Harwood scored the brother’s best result with 3rd some 10 laps behind Chris.
Overall Championship
Main Grade
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2nd Champion 3rd 2nd Champion 3rd Chris Thomas James Cleave Mark Harwood David Austin Aston Offer Stan Alton © Copyright British Slot Car Racing Association 2021 Photos copyright C.Frost 2021 All rights reserved |