The endurance was started on Monday. To my knowledge, it's one of the few events where Nitro and Electric cars race head to head. This is the way it works:

It's a team event. Each team has it's own transponder. Basically each team should have 1 car only on the track at all times. Each team has at least 1 member marshalling at any one time. 2 tracks were laid - one inside the other. The smaller inner track was designed for electric cars, set such that the club's fastest electric driver could attain 14 laps over 5 minutes. The outer track was for Nitro cars/trucks and set so that the fastest nitro driver could attain 14 laps. In actual fact, it is very similar to the WRC super special stages. The teams decide which drivers are going out first and the racing begins.

Pitwork and smooth change overs are all important. Should technical problems develop, teams have to have contingency plans and good communication. If certain cars are having cells/receiver packs charged, teams have to synchronize their actions so that there are always 1 car plus an emergency car ready at all times.

Due to bad weather, it was decided to limit the endurance race to 4 hours, rather than 1000 laps. I had read of an endurance race being won by HPI and their Savage team, so I gathered that my Savage should do really well.

The teams consisted of:

Team Flange (my team)

B4, Fireblade, MBX4RR, Hyper 7, Hyper 7, Savage SS, Revo

The A Team

RC10, RC10, B4, B4, Yokomo BC, Tmaxx, Tmaxx Hyper 7, Losi XXX, Rustler.

Team Wankel

MT2, XXXBK, Cat 2000, Hyper 7

Lilly Savages

Savage .25, Savage .26 (outlaw), Savage .26 P3 (Werks)

The racing was typically frantic, but over a much longer time scale. It's quite strange feeling your legs going numb on the rostrum. Oh, and your eyes drying up from lack of blinking!

By the end of 2 hours, the order was:

Team Flange 285 laps
The A Team 260 laps
Team Wankel 216 laps
Lilly Savages 176 laps

So much happened, it would be impossible to list all the highlights. Suffice to say it was a real spectical for all involved and crowds of locals/holiday makers gathered to spectate. Awesome.

By the 4th hour, the final results looked like this:

Team Flange 567 laps
The A Team 529 laps
Team Wankel 405 laps
Lilly Savages 360 laps

What a great day's racing. Take my advice: if you want to make a really good excuse to get some major track time, why not organise a team endurance race!!

The Savage was the team's secret weapon. What it lacked over the 1/8th buggies, it made up for in terms of consistency and tank capacity. It seemed to go on & on, my ported S-25 was actually very good on fuel and ate up the miles. If there were technical probs with other cars, I could do a splash & dash pit stop and go out for another 15 minutes without hassle. The Ramtech Viper 40 Alloy wheels were used throughout the day and proved once again to be totally race worthy.

Please excuse my ramblings and 2 rather large posts. I hope it makes for an interesting read for some of you!

Regards

Horatio