© Copyright British Slot Car Racing Association 2024 Photos copyright C.Frost 2024 All rights reserved
1/32 Nationals 2024
Betta & Classic 2023 Saloon Championship
There were 43 drivers in Saturday’s saloon class racing. In this class there’s a free choice of chassis, motors are restricted to group 12. This class usually has the widest variety of bodies. The Betta Mustang proved the most popular, there were also quite a lot of Betta DTM Aston Martins.
Best Presented -
Betta Ford Mustang
It was an early start for Saturday practice, this was followed by best presented body judging and 1 minute qualifying runs. Thanks to Ian Fitzpatrick for judging best presented in all 3 classes.
James Cleave was top qualifier with a 5.927 second lap, setting anew record for this class just 3 milliseconds faster than the record he set last year. The 43 entries were seeded into 5 heats, 3 with 9 drivers and 8 in the top two groups.
Main Grade Final
With Richard Mack making the overall final, Paul Shepherd was top
qualifier for the main grade final in 9th overall. Paul led the final closely followed
by Barry Gilzean. These two pulled away from 2024 clubman saloon champion Mark
Croston who was followed by Peter Donely and Simon Scott. Steve Sargent, and Pat
Skene retired with car troubles. Chris Aldridge had a couple of long pit stops. Shep
won by a margin of 2 laps from Barry with Mark a further 8 laps back in 3rd.
The Overall Final
Main Grade final
Chris Mark Barry Steve
Peter Pat Paul Simon
The winning car had a CleaveTech 2023 chassis, the motor had a Koford 48 degree armature in a ProSlot can.
Gears -
Body -
Rear tyres -
Weight -
The top 3 qualifiers for the Overall Final were James Cleave followed by Gavin Wills and Greg Harwood. James raised his 227 lap record about quarter of a lap. James retained his National title. Richard Mack only qualified 8th, but took second in the final followed by Will Stemman, Gavin and Greg. Chris Thomas suffered some delays in the pits, while Josh Bryant and Martin Ellis retired with their car problems. Congratulations to James, on retaining his title. He was using the same car as last year. His heat and final time were within a small fraction of a lap of last year’s totals suggesting the track conditions were very similar |
Richard Mack’s second place car was the lightest in the final at 76 gms -
Will Stemman took third with this Grogan chassis -