Area 8 Championship 2008                      

by Peter Farthing

This short article marks my first year as Area Co-ordinator after taking over from Vince Lee at the begining of the season. After a few hiccups when my email went skywards but thanks to the able assistance of Phil Moss with the Roedale Website a fairly successful season was had by all who came.

Over the last 10 years since I returned to slot racing the support for the Area rounds has slowly dwindled and with the sad passing of Dubs, Lee Parsons moving away and Charles Hunt being posted by his firm to Ireland for 18 months, the numbers needed to physically run a meeting have been stretched to say the least, especially at Crawley. The tracks most suited to st up the cars for the Nationals, like Wildfields and Pinewood, need quite a few marshalls and as we later found out from Dave Mayo, Pinewood is run on a break-even basis

Attendance at all rounds was patchy with a maximum of 11 at Coulsden and 6 at Pinewood. If it hadn't been for a certain Mr B Saunders attending 3 of the rounds, marshalling would have been problematic. It was nice to see Trevor Crout at Haydon and Coulsden. It reminded me of when we used to race each other at Nordic in the 1970's.

This year the racing that was had amongst the few was excellent though. There are some extremely quick guys in Area 8 and the overall points positions do not reflect the closeness of the finals. In particular, on their home tracks, the likes of Mike Crofts and Wink Hackman kept Vince and Ian Barker at bay but only just. At Haydon Wink managed a win in the Sports B Final after some dissapointing heats and was only 3/4 a lap slower than Vinces A final 1st place. Brian Saunders was TQ in F1, as you might expect but had to race in the B final as he is not Area 8 and only exceeded Winks winning total in the A final by 0.02 of a lap.  Mike Crofts was 2nd, two laps down with a similar margin to 3rd placeman Ian Barker. It is always a pleasure racing at Haydon with its' superb track and facilities. Its' even better now with the new heating system ! Regarding the finals, no one driver dominated with Wink  taking  F1 in superb style, Vince victorious in Sports,  Ian Barker simply brilliant in Saloon and Mike Crofts a gallant 2nd in all three.

Crawley was a bit of a low turnout and even though it is my home track I could not hang onto the coat tails of the fast boys. Keith Gibson really shone here cleaning up in Sports and F1. Tony Baldock deserved better in Sports as he only qualified for the B Final and won with one and a half laps more than Keith in the A Final. F1 was very close with only 3 laps over 5 minutes separating first in the A to last in the B., (my home track and I still came last - bugger it !) Saloon was also very close with very little seperating the Coulsden and Roedale boys. Crawley Novice Alex Williams showed me the way home using one of my cars. He hopes to compete at the Nats when he is a little older and.Vince is in the process of building him a saloon car. In the Saloon A Final Vince beat Ian Barker by 3 laps although in qualifying they were only seperated by less than half a lap. It was good seeing Brian Galpin making the trip down from Reading and he had a close tussle in all 3 B Finals with Crawley Club Champion Charles Hunt. Many Thanks are due to Birdseed aka Mike Thomas who ran race control.

Now we come to Roedale, perhaps the smallest but most perfectly formed club in Area 8. The automatic knee polishing carpetis definitely a feature one notices when taking up your marshalling position ! Seriously though, many thanks to Chris Church for a very well run Area round despite the low turnout. Roedale has many very quick guys who would definitely tighten up the championship and keep the fast boys honest. One of the factors against trekking all the way up to Pinewood and Wildfields is the small fact that their straights are 3 times longer than Roedales'. The main attraction for me, if I was from Roedale would be that I should be able to really stand a srong chance at the other clubs that don't race the strap classes. Now to the racing. Phil Hemsley, the former Formula 32 Nationals Champion (of yester year !) was TQ in Sports but lost out to Ian Barker in the A Final. Phil Moss was third whilst Vince had to retire. Phil Moss took the F1 A Final from Ian Barker who had his revenge by winning the Saloon final. Of all the rounds, Roedale had the largest entry for Novice. With the new rules governing Novice, Malcolm Avison secured a narrow win against Phil Hemsley in Saloon. Phil then promptly reversed the tables on Malcolm by winning the Production A Final whilst in the B Final, Alex Williams beat me by two laps !

The penultimate round was at Pinewood, the reformed old Reading Club where Honda's Ross Brawn used to race. It was great to be able to do some really high speed lappery and explore the limits of the cars. Sports was just blindingly fast with Vince winning from Mike Crofts by just 0.1 of a lap in a near 70 lap A final. Brian Saunders raced in the B Final and lapped me 16 times, (not a hard feat i know) recording 2 laps more than Vinces total. In F1 Mike Crofts had to settle for 2nd again, this time at the hands of Brian Galpin whose winning margin was almost as big as his model car box ! Thanks are due to Dean Garton without whose help in organisation and running race control would have prevented the round taking place. For next year Dave Mayo has asked that Pinewood be removed from automatic selection as an Area round. I would be very sorry to see this happen and would like to appeal to the BSCRA members at the other clubs to come along to a superb track and excellent facilities. May I humbley offer a leather seat in my X type to any one from Roedale, Coulsden or Haydon next year to Pinewood.

On to the final round at Coulsden and the biggest turnout of this years championship. This produced the most exciting and closest racing so far. Many thanks to Nick Lake for Race control and Bob Andrews for track preparation. Unfortunately Bob could not attend as he was marshalling at Silverstone. There was a superb showdown between the big boys in all three main classes and production was just Titanic. Mike Crofts and Vince went head to head, Vince winning Sports and Mike wining F1 and Saloon. Truly epic racing. Tony Baldock made all three A Finals whilst Trevor Crout finally sorted out his cars (and controller !) to show us what he could do. In the Novice classes there was a strong contingent from Roedale in the form of Phil Moss, Phil Hemsley and Malcolm Avison. Phil Moss was also accompanied by little Miss Moss who did a superb job of marshalling in free practice ! Novice Saloon was a one lap winning margin for Phil Hemsley from Trevor Crout with Phil Moss third. In production Phil Hemsley lent me a spare car but in the end I used one of Roland Hobdens which Malcolm Avison kindly lent me. I was optimistic about my chances and had a close battle with Phil Hemsly to win by 2 feet.

All in all a successful season and one that I have enjoyed as Area co-ordinator. I would like to extend mine and I'm sure everyone elses thanks to the Clubs and their race controllers without whom we could not have raced. The places available to Area 8 for the Nationals are as follows.

·                    Sports and F1       9 places each.

·                    Saloon      13 places

·                     Production     7 places

Please let me know asap your intention to take up your place if you took part in 2 Area rounds or more. I will be going to the Nats but only to assist Chris Frost and will not be racing.

Before I close there are one or two thoughts that I would like to share with you to help next years Area Rounds go a little more smoothly

1)  I will be drafting a provisional Calendar for 08/09 immediately after the Nats and I would like to, with Dave Mayo's and Terry's permission to include Pinewood and Wildfields in the schedule.

2)  If some of us can car share and encourage all those new , recategorised novices out there as well as the newcomers and youngsters like Alex Williams we may be able to field at least one Nationals Finalist next year to take advantage of the 7 places we are allocated in Production.

3)  Ours is a great hobby and one I have enjoyed coming back to. It is sometimes difficult to get motivated to meet some challenges but by participating in open meetings like Area Rounds, Southern

32 and the BOC, you improve your driving skills, car preparation and get to meet lots of friends and exchange ideas, all to the benefit of the sport.

Regarding challanges may I relate to you, with your indulgence, the following tale that I saw recently. It is called Wow!

"Last Spring I was walking in a Park. A short distance ahead of me was a Mother and her three year old daughter. The little girl was holding on to a string that was attached to a helium balloon.

All of a sudden, a sharp gust of wind took the baloon from the little girl. I braced myself for some screaming and crying. But, no! As the little girl turned to watch her baloon go skyward, she gleefully shouted out, Wow!  I didn't realise it at that moment , but that little girl had taught me something.

Later that day I received a phone call from a person with news of an unexpected problem. I felt like responding with 'Oh no, what should we do?' But remembering the little girl, I found myself saying, 'Wow thats interesting! How can I help you.?'

One thing is certain - life is always going to keep us off balance with its unexpected problems; that's for sure. What's not preordained is our response. We can choose to be frustrated or fascinated.

No matter what the situation, a fascinated 'Wow!' will always beat a frustrated 'Oh no'. So next time you experience one of life's unexpected gusts, remember that little girl and make it a Wow! experience. The Wow! experience always works."

We all get frustrated with our slotracing from time to time and I thought the little story very apt for when you are racing hard and unexpectantly youir car leaves the track, heading for the floor or just refuses to handle no matter what tweaks you perform. So look for the Wow! - what can I do to fix this and rise to the challenge rather than get frustrated. The thing is you have to go the Area round to get the Wow! experience in the first place!

All the Best Chaps and see you at Newbury.

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