THE MHSC RALLY EVENT – 10TH FEBRUARY 2008

Take three layouts, three classes and what do you get? The answer is about 426 unforgiving bends (yes, I did work it out), numerous hump-back bridges, some very bumpy straights and some trips around a farmyard!

On Sunday 10th February, Watford’s MHSC was visited by a host of top slot-rally racers, and me. I had only done a couple of these things before, and I’ll be the first to admit that the special skills required to make a successful slot-rally driver have so far managed to elude me by quite a long way. Endurance racing is my thing, the one-hour stint on a tricky gutter lane at three o’clock in the morning with a car that’s not quite as good as when it all started eleven hours ago, the trying to change wheels when you’re so tired you can’t see straight, the blistered fingers and the falling asleep in unlikely places, etc.. The polar opposite, then, to what we encountered on Sunday; no practice (whaaat?), so your first run on a layout is your first timed run! And then there were all those bends. Straights, I have found, are quite easy to get the hang of, but the straights here tended to be followed by a bend about two feet later. With all the lumps, bumps and other bits of topography-in-plastic, a nice relaxing Sunday drive wasn’t going to be an option.

There were three classes: RAID vehicles, two-wheel-drive cars and four-wheel-drive cars. I don’t possess one of those knobbly wobbly 4WD RAID jobs, so I had planned just to run in the two car classes, but then my good mate Roly offered me the once-in-a-lifetime (or twice if you’re really unlucky) opportunity to borrow his BMW X5. Having driven it at the MHSC ‘Allsorts’ night, I didn’t hesitate. “No, thanks”, I said. He kept on and on, and pointed out that the entry fee for three classes was only £1.50 more than for two. It was a very close call, but I gave in (i.e. ran out of excuses) and carefully placed the BMW on top of my box, whereupon it fell on its side, as if to give me some indication of the handling qualities I should expect. In the two-wheel-drive class I had entered my rather fab Classic SCX Fiat 124, as I thought it would look good, rather than being ultra-competitive, and my MHSC Rally Class circuit racer Ninco Mitsubishi WRC was to be my 4WD steed. I had quite high hopes for that car – it’s one of the ones that came with an NC6 motor and has flattered my driving enough to take the class championship this year.

So, we divided ourselves up into groups of four or thereabouts, and hit the tracks! I thought it would be a good tactic to use the BMW on the first of my three runs (one for each class), as the best that I could hope for would be that I wouldn’t be last overall, and at least I’d get some idea of the circuit by the time I got to the faster cars. I set off on track 1 at Sainsbury’s car park speed, ignoring the taunts of my colleagues, and by virtue of only one minor ‘off’, finished with a better time than my fast-becoming-ex-mate Roly’s Pajero. The great thing about the big RAID vehicles is that, with their drop arms and suspension, you can put a wheel off the track and on to the table and it’ll just drag itself back on, which does come in handy. It was clear from the first run that my splendid little Fiat was going to get murdered by the Ninco Rally Porsche 934s - they have suspension for a start – so my two-wheel-drive effort quickly became one of “Yes, but doesn’t it look good?”. It wasn’t bad, though, just not as good as the 934s. My beloved Ninco Mitsubishi WRC did me proud again, and did the fastest time of our little group.

With confidence riding high, I set off on track 2, the one with the simulated snow section…and made a bit of a mess of it. It had the longest lap length of any of the circuits, and I could swear it changed every time I went round it. My stately progress tactic with the big BMW came unstuck as I should have tried to go a bit faster, I think, but Roly did manage to slide into a bridge with the Pajero. It was on its side at the time… Yes, I would say that my slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach at least proved that this particular adage is often nonsense.

Oh no, track 3, the one with the nasty bridges and sections of rockery! If the BMW has an element, then it must be this, and it shook, rattled and rolled round like a Tonka toy to finish the morning neck-and-neck with the dreaded Pajero. The poor little Fiat, on the other hand, just rattled a lot over the rocky bits, but, amazingly, despite looking constantly on the edge of disaster, stayed in the slot remarkably well. I must remember to ask for a class for ‘Classic’ 2WD cars next time!

A lunch break was announced, and things were to resume with the tracks running in the opposite direction. Forget everything you’ve just learned, or at least try to remember it backwards!

The three layouts again, trying to take a few more risks, often wishing I hadn’t. Even more people noticing how carefully the big X5 was being driven. On my last run of the day, with the Mitsubishi WRC, I got a bit carried away and nearly managed a complete loop coming off a hump-back bridge. If it had landed back in the slot it would have looked like I really knew what I was doing, but it landed on its roof, showing that I didn’t.

So where did I end up? The Mitsubishi WRC took itself to 9th out of 50, so I’m quite chuffed with that, the Fiat was a plucky 27th, and the BMW RAID (having recorded identical times on track 2 each way) was...er….44th, and not last. The Pajero? 46th. The best bit of the day, that.

My thanks go to Roly for lending me the big blue beastie, and to everyone at the MHSC who spent so much time and effort setting up the tracks and taking them down again. My congratulations to everyone who did better than I did. That was great fun. I really must get a rally Porsche 934…