Our recent Pay & Play night was an absolute blast, and the timesheet was a fantastic mix of raw speed, setup testing, and, let’s be honest… a few headline-grabbing ‘parking lot’ records!

This week featured our new track layout, which proved to be much faster than our previous configuration but still featured a technical infield section that caught some drivers out. It was a brilliant evening that showcased the diversity of our club, with everything from screaming Group C machines and sleek F1 cars to the ever-popular Tamiya Touring Cars and frantic 12th Minis taking to the track.

Here’s a deep dive into the results and what everyone was running on the night, including a look at the two timing screens captured during the evening:

👑 The True Speed Kings: Consistency is Key on the New Layout

In RC racing, the Best 10 Average is the gold standard, demonstrating a driver’s consistent speed and ability to minimize mistakes. Given the challenge of the new, technical layout, these times are particularly impressive!

The best consistent pace of the night came from our multi-car master: Mark Raddenbury!

• P2 Overall (Blinky Touring Car): Mark’s main entry set an incredible Best 10 of 7.08 seconds, showing exceptional consistency throughout his runs on the fresh layout.
• The Versatility Award: Mark also proved his mastery by bringing out two other cars: a Tamiya TC and an F1 machine!

Tying Mark for consistency was Mark Bruton-Young (P4 Overall), who was having fun again with his borrowed F1 car. He showed real pace, achieving an outstanding Best outright lap of 7.00 seconds, proving the single-seater class is deceptively quick when driven well!

🤣 The ‘Parking Lot’ Podium (Best Lap Times)

While the Best 10 shows consistency, the Best Lap is all about raw, unadulterated speed!

Huge congrats go to James Stuart (P1, 6.12s) and Martin Matthews (P3, 6.20s) for their unbelievable headline-grabbing times. We suspect they may have stopped directly on the timing loop for those figures!

• James was out with his Group C machine, which clearly has the ultimate pace.
• Martin was pushing his Tamiya TC, showing that a prepared touring car can challenge the faster classes for a single-lap dash.

🌟 Class Action Highlights

The night was packed with great action across several classes, all attacking the new technical infield:

🏎️ Group C & LMGT3 Showcase

• James Stuart (P1) set the ultimate pace in his Group C machine.
• Bruce Poole (P9) was out challenging the times with his Group C car.
• Alexander Hall (P11) was flying in his sleek LMGT3 car.

💨 Mini Mayhem (12th Mini)

This was a busy and close class!

• Mark Harper (P5) and John Mudway (P6) were locked in a close battle, with Mark achieving a great Best 10 of 7.49s.
• Later in the evening, David Couchman (P15/P22) also logged some solid laps with his 12th Mini.

🚗 Tamiya TC Domination: The Bulk of the Field

Tamiya Touring Cars were easily the dominant class for the evening, filling out the majority of the grid and proving this is the club’s go-to class for close racing. Beyond the front-runners, a massive shout-out goes to the rest of the field who were all pushing hard in their Tamiya TC machines, including:

• Shane Childs (P12)
• Louie Charles (P13)
• Alexander Hall’s second car (P14)
• David Couchman (P15)
• Ben Bass (P18)
• Chris Bullock (P19)
• Alex Mallinson (P20)
• Ashley Mallinson (P16 & P23)
• Paul Campion (P21)

👨‍💼 Chairman’s Run

• Always great to see our fearless leader on track! Our Chairman, Chris Milner, was out practising under the transponder name ‘Tr. 9885870’ (P10 Best 10 of 8.15s), setting a solid pace.

📊 Final Results Snapshot

Here is the top section of the practice results screen showing the incredible pace at the front of the pack:

And a look at the latter half of the sheet, showing more great efforts from the field:

🎄 Looking Ahead: Christmas Endurance & The New Year

What a way to round off the weekly Pay & Play sessions! But the fun isn’t over yet:

• Next Week: Christmas Special! We will be running our annual Christmas Endurance Event next week. This is a team-based fun run, challenging both driver stamina and pit crew strategy. More details on entry, rules, and timings will be announced very soon, so keep an eye on our social channels!
• Christmas Break: The club will then take a short break to celebrate the festive season.
• Return Date: We will be back on Tuesday, January 6th with another popular Pay & Play session. This will be the perfect opportunity to dust off your cars and get those thumbs back in shape after the holiday festivities!

Thanks again to everyone who came out to make it such a brilliant night of diverse and fast RC racing on the new layout! We look forward to seeing you all for the Endurance challenge next week!

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#FODRCC #RCTouringCar #12thMini #RCF1 #GroupC #LMGT3 #RCRacing #PayAndPlay #RCEndurance