Anyway, with my engine shatting its conrod at Slough SRS last year and the subsequent purchase of a new engine, which admittedly sat in its box for a while as I took time to do stuff, which I can't think for the life of me what, I thought it best to get the thing ran in and turning wheels.
The last weekend of February saw me attend the penultimate round of South Coast RCs Winter Fandango series, wearing shorts. yes, that weekend.
So, still pedaling the SWorkz Evo 2 while I wait for new hardware. It's now Orion Crf/HB powered and ready to be tweaked as the day goes on.
With only 19 or so in attendance, I found myself in Heat 1, so off I go. With my engine still running quite rich, I fail to finish the 1st two rounds of qualifying as I ran out of fuel about 20 seconds before the end. However, rather safe than sorry, at least I know it's getting a fighting chance of being ran in with a little bit of finesse instead the touch of Fred West.
Come Finals time and I'm 4th in the C. Not exactly the best I know, but it's a new engine and I hadn't nitro'd since the Steve and Bernie Memorial race. With Mark Harding doing me the honour of pitting for me, and an increasingly tense battle with a bloke called Pete I believe. It all comes down to the last lap or two, and after lots of passing and passing back, Petes chances of making a return pass in the dying seconds fall short as he runs out of fuel, leaving me to breath easy and take the win, and thus, the bump up.
Last (7th) on the grid for the B and pitting for me now is, erm, wossis name, y'know, Future World Models shop guy. Sorry if I've forgotten your name, anyway, him.
The flag goes up and I make a blinder of a start, and 2 or 3 laps in I'm 2nd. Then, the announcement for everyone to go back to pitlane. The timing computer has spazzed out so a restart is on order.
With the restart underway after a fashion, I get a clean start but get whacked on the way down and left for dead after the triple, 1 corner in. So dead last again after that fiasco. I make my way up to 3rd by the end of the 15 minutes. I was quite pleased with that. Not sure how much better it could've gone, but it could've gone the other way.
A week later, the 3rd of March and I have a stinking cold and it's pissing down with rain. I'm track bound again, this time the SWorkz S12-m gets a go. From 1/8th nitro to 1/10th 2wd. The destination is the last round of TORCH' indoor winter jest fest, held at Swanmore Sports College.
I take one look at the track and wonder how the hell I'm going to drive that. Looks can be deceiving and I instantly found my feet. The track was the best of the series, with lots of little details to keep one occupied, including the 4 fingers, the radius jumps and the lino. I was once again in heat one during qualifying, which I appeared to dominate, with 3 wins out of 4. The last of which was taken by a returning Christian Minter, driving hard.
I'm on pole for the less than glamourous D Final. Mustn't grumble though, someone has to be. With messyrs Minter and Mallard behind me, I predict a challenge coming my way. Christian gives me a run for my money for a few laps but he gives me some breathing space when he makes an error, I check out, lap back markers and take leg 1 win.
Leg 2 is a carbon copy of leg 1 but leg 3 is where it fell apart, folding like a cheap hooker bending down for a twenty. After a false start where Christian and I were already at the four fingers when the tone went, we lined up for a restart. Mr Minter wanted this one and on the restart, my car got hit and spun round till I was dead last, and anyone who has ever done RC knows that once that happens in a 5 minute race, it's hard to make that up.
I gave chase and began to make up ground, but I couldn't quite find the rhythm I felt with the rest of the day making errors shortly after making a pass or getting whacked by back markers. It was mostly all there toward the end though as I had made it to 2nd place and in the dying laps, I made a move on Christian over the double, but the car went up at an angle I wasn't planning on and it hit the track marking head on with a thud and Christian fucked off into the distance to take the leg 3 win.
I took the over all win though which was nice. Julian Mallard later cursed me for losing the last leg, as if I had beaten Christian again, he would have got 2nd, instead of the over all 3rd.
I was there with the stepson, and he was also racing, unfortunately, the wheel spring on his radio broke meaning he had no steering centre so he missed out on his Finals.
We were very appreciative though when International and National racing Legend Lee Martin and his fellow Nemo Racing mate, gave us half dozen sets of wheels and tyres, presumably having only done one run each. Muchos Gracias guys.
So that was that.
Except on the Monday after South Coast, I got the news first hand that a good friend of ours had died suddenly. Dianne Noble, other half of Bigz. Had fallen foul of a horrible chain of events beginning with a cold and ending in multiple heart attacks. We spent lots of time with Dianne and Bigz, Weekends at Brands Hatch, breakfast runs, and runs out on bikes, having known them both since 2002. She was a lovely person and I'll always remember the lardy cakes she brought over for me when my Mum died. RIP Dianne, you will be missed.
