Round three July 31st 2005 Canvey Island

Jim Kelly wins his 15th EAHORC race, well clear of anyone else

Deane Walpole joins an elite group of racers to win British HO races with four different chassis
(SRT, Turbo, MR1 & Artin)

Full report to follow

Round two, April 17th 2005 Norton

This round saw the welcome return of Mike Ovens, sidelined in recent months by work and
college commitments. Mike was keen to see if he could be the star of our Easter meeting for the
third year in succession, despite feeling under the weather. With 12 drivers attending, many
making their return, it was clear we were in for a good day of racing on the Donington layout (only
decided upon at 2:30PM the previous day!).

First up was class II F1 races with everyone bar John Ovens and Clive Mills using the ubiquitous
Tyco narrow chassis. After the first round of heats Mike had posted the best score (18.0) from Jim
Kelly and Deane Walpole. He didn't do so well in round 2, struggling in green lane, and the other
two leapfrogged him. At this point Deane had fastest lap with 9.08s but 4 other drivers had done
times under the 10 second barrier, including Jamie Kelly who was leading the King's Lynn
contingent.

Round three was Jim's turn to wobble whilst Mike improved his best score to 18.2 laps, this was
however eclipsed by Deane with 18.6 (in green). Most drivers had by this stage posted laps under
10 seconds but Jim and Terry Blackmore were now heavily into the eights!! With the final round
approaching everyone had something to play for, with the cumulative score unusually tight all the
way down the order.

Round four was won by Terry and Mike (18.0) from Jim (17.8), and this proved sufficient for the
returning Ovens Jnr to snatch pole by exactly half a lap from Deane (in turn half a lap ahead of
Jim). Terry had nabbed fourth but would need to win the 'B' final if he wanted to make his fourth
'A' final from 4 attempts.

Before that Brain Rogers, Bob Purdue and Clive had to face off in the 'D'. This was won
handsomely by the NSCC magazine editor, who didn't once put the car in the wall despite his
self-deprecating editorial remarks! So Brian then stepped into the yellow lane and made a good
fist of jumping another final with 16.1 laps (much better than he had done in his yellow heat).
Unfortunately for him, he came up against a returning Matt Norris who produced a nicely paced
drive to take the win.

The 'B' was won by John half a lap ahead of Terry. Up to that point John had been on or near the
pace with his Turbo but switched to a Tyco in an attempt to win the 'A'. Ultimately he wasn't quite
able to keep up with Jim and Deane but took third ahead of son Mike. Jim drove a stormer, but it
also proved that all four lanes were pretty even as he won in green for only his first 'A' final
triumph of 2005.

After Lunch attention switched to Class I sports racing. The first surprise was that these cars were
no quicker in round 1 than the Class II cars, Jim Kelly leading the charge on 18.0 from Brian
(17.1),Terry (16.8) and Bob (16.7). In round 2 something of a gap started to appear with John
recording the first 20 lapper, 0.5 laps up from Jim, and only two hundredths of a second away
from breaking the 8 second barrier. At this stage the Automatic 'A' final places belonged to Jim,
Bob & John Kelly, the remarkable thing being how close things were. P3 to P8 were separated by
less than one lap!

Round three saw Deane make a recovery after trailing down in P10 with a new best score of
21.4. Jim helped his cause further with a 19.8 bettered only by Deane and John Ovens. At this
stage Jim was comfortably ahead of John and the rest but of course round 4 would see dropped
scores come into play. Bob at this stage was only half a lap behind Jim, but of course we had all
seen what he was capable of on his debut back in February, so it was not a complete surprise.

Round four saw Terry become the third and last driver to get into the 20 lap bracket and two
drivers finally got under the 8 second barrier. In the end, John Ovens took P1 ahead of Jim and
Deane. Bob dropped down to 8th after a poorer score in green but, once again, the gaps between
the qualifiers were very small so this was a tad unlucky. Worst still this put him in the 'C' final with
Jamie Kelly and Mike just as they found top form. Eventually Mike's experience paid off and he
won by one lap to take the same green lane in the 'B' final.

By now Mike was in full flow and dispatched Brian, impressive newcomer Simon Beckett and
Terry with ease to land himself in the 'A' final and still in green lane. The 'A' final was to be a tense
affair with only Jim producing a fastest lap close to what he had done in the heats. The final
minute became a game of cat and mouse between Deane and John with Ovens Snr twice getting
within six inches of the lead before crashing. Eventually John, whilst quicker, simply ran out of
time to Deane's relief! Mike and Jim ended up 2-3 laps back after messy races.

John now leads the overall points table, Deane leads Class I and Class II is lead by Jim. Next
meeting will be at the Canvey hall on May 15th with the rules the same as this meeting.

Click here to download the spreadsheet for the day and here for the points tables.

Round one, Feb 6th 2005 Norton

I don't think if I could have written a script for Sunday's racing I could have done a better job than
what actually came to pass. First off no less than 23 slot racers came to the hall at some point,
most of those who only had time for a flying visit vowing to return and/or spread the word. 17
guys actually raced, although not all of them all day.

Whatever part you played today, a big thank you from myself and Jim Kelly. I was a real buzz to
see the hall so busy, even if it meant we did not have lunch until 1:40pm !!

As if the turnout was not good enough in itself, it was fantastic to see some very good driving
amongst the new faces. I must single out Bob Purdue and Terry Blackmore, who had never done
any kind of H:O racing at club level. Bob gave us all a jolt by being on the pace from the off, not
fazed by mixing it with the club champions or racing on the huge Pocono oval with 45' main
straight, and qualified P2 in the morning. Terry got quicker as the day wore on, finished P2 in the
morning and then took a well deserved win in the afternoon.

I'd like to thank Paul Roach for coming a long way and setting up his 1/43rd stuff for us to play on.
I think poffling round with one of the Carrera Minis was my biggest 'grin' of the day! It was clear
that Paul had done some work on the cars, and I suspect he hasn't scratched the surface yet.
Very impressive, I think this scale could be one to watch.

With such a big Oval it was always a possibility that the Tomy Turbo would dominate, as these
cars love the big straights. But, initially the Tycos were holding their own, in fact John was
buildings cars throughout the day and it was not until round three of the morning races that the
Turbo was clearly the best choice. With class II cars allowed to run in class I this really put Terry &
John in the pound seats.

John ended up marginally the quickest after qualifying, and chose Yellow for the 'A' final, where
he would be joined by Bob in blue and Jim in Red. The last place was up for grabs and the action
began with the 'E' final (long time since we had one of those!). This was comfortably won by
newcomer Shaun Bennett, despite being in green lane. In the process he beat Jamie Kelly (no
relation!) who normally does much better than this at his own clubs' races and so suffered a lot of
verbal abuse, which he took good naturedly.

In the 'D' final Shaun again had green lane and came within one lap of moving up again, the race
eventually won by Paul Edmunds on 28.2 in yellow lane (a score that was nearly a lap better than
he got in his heat on yellow). This put him into the 'C' final, won by Jamie's Dad John just ahead
of NSCC magazine editor Brian Rogers. Clive Mills had been having a good day, but the
pendulum can soon swing the other way and come the 'B' that is what happened. He'd actually
tied Jim Kelly for P3 in qualy but missed the last automatic 'A' final spot, on countback to fastest
lap, by a few hundredths of a second. His chances of grafting his way in were scuppered as Terry
now had his Turbo flying and won the race by 2 clear laps.

In the 'A' Terry put in a strong drive, but had to battle John Ovens' equally quick Turbo and so lost
out by just 2 tenths, with Jim and Bob trailing 2 laps further back. John has been trying to win an
EAHORC main final for years, and was elated and relieved to finally do so. Everyone who knows
him was chuffed to bits too. The EAHORC tradition of bringing in new winners has continued.

After Lunch, in class I, it became clear that John and Terry were still getting quicker, but others
were gamely trying to stay with them. Deane Walpole became the third driver of the day to dip
under a 5 second lap, actually posting a 4.59 on his way to a score of 35.1, and in the process
became the first UK user of an Artin chassis. At the end of round one he was comfortably in pole
position, but after round 2 (where he switched to an MR1) had been bumped by Terry posting a
new benchmark of 37.6 with his Turbo, and shaving a hundredth off the lap record.

These two duked it out all the way, with Deane (now using an SRT!) taking a big lead after round
3, only to find Terry had matched him tenth for tenth by the end of qualy. Jim Kelly had not been
having a great day by his standards but drove his SG+ flawlessly in blue in round four to up the
best score to 38.7 and lower the lap record to 4.36 seconds. This great drive under pressure
denied John Ovens the last automatic 'A' spot but Terry took P1 on countback to fastest lap
compared to Deane, to uphold Turbo honour.

There have been three sets of father & sons battles in EAHORC history and, on Sunday, we had
a fourth. John Kelly had won the 'D' final and so set himself up against son Jamie in the 'C'.
Historically, the sons usually come out on top and so it proved again with Jamie beating his dad
by 2.1 laps to move into the 'B' race where everyone got squished by John's Turbo.

In the 'A' Terry was always favourite, but had to pull out all the stops. John and Deane faded but
Jim Kelly stuck to his task and in the end was just over one lap behind. To complete a perfect
sweep, Terry took the lap record and biggest score as well as being declared overall winner on
the day (with a trophy to prove it). Not too shabby for his first competitive HO race!