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CLUB HISTORY
(Written by Club Chairman Steve Carter)
Our club began life in 1977 when its founder, Roy Charlesworth: decided the time was right to resurrect his old hobby one more time.
Roy was a dance instructor at the Haringey Ballroom in Wood Green North London, and so he was able to use the dance hall on a Sunday to build a circuit and host races. The track sections he used in the beginning were old plexytrack from his club nine years before, when model slot car racing had succumbed to the might of the commercial raceway, and the ugly four wheeled missiles that hurtled around them. That scene too had now been and gone, and there was really only Scalextric clinging on, but Roy felt he had to give it another go.
He advertised his racedays in the press and was surprised at the good response he got. People came from all over the London and South East region to race every two weeks and things went so well that in 1978 the club organised the South of England Championships which attracted an entry of 54 drivers. They raced Super Formula Scalextric Grand Prix cars and the favourite model was the new Lotus 77, and one of the drivers racing a Lotus that day was a young John Herbert from Romford Essex, who had arrived escorted by his father. Though he had never even seen the circuit before he went on to finish 3rd, beating most of the home drivers in the process. Johnny, as he later became better known, went on to much greater things in real cars winning Grand Prix as well as LeMans for Mazda.
As well as the racing at Wood Green there was a passion for collecting and among the members at this time was Roger Gillham who’s subsequent books written on the subject have become legendary.
It was at this time that a collection club was started at the club which went on to become the NSCC, and it was the collecting interest in October 1979 that resulted in a young Anton Palau visiting the club as a guest of one of the members. Anton’s fathers shop in Barcelona had already become something of a ‘Mecca’ for enthusiasts in England, and arrangements were made for a return visit to Barcelona the following year. But that same year the bad news came that the dance hall was closing and the club had to find a new home, and Roy asked the members to look around for new premises. What actually happened was that some members found premises nearer their own homes and started new clubs, which split the membership. Though at the same time it did expand the hobby by creating new clubs
Roy eventually found a new home for his dance classes and the club at St Marks Church Hall just 200 yards from where it had begun, and we are still racing there 22 years later, on Tuesday evenings.
I arrived at the club in 1982, picking up my interest in the hobby where I had left it in 1969, and I put my knowledge and enthusiasm into improving the club and its facilities, especially the track, which by now was in a bit of a state. There were power problems and a lack of automatic lap counters, or even dynamic braking.
Over the last 20 years the club and its facilities has continually improved along with the re-growth of the hobby, and we have hosted European Championship Grand Prix, taking the portable 6 lane circuit to various larger venues, and our drivers have become European Champion on 3 occasions. We have also taken teams to overseas endurance events such as the 24 hours of Brussels, and the 24 hours du Chesnay, the latter of which we have won 3 times over a 10 year period.
Our current circuit is quite a fast and flowing design of 32m, which suites the current crop of cars very well. It has gradually evolved from the original circuit of 1982 rather than starting life from a blank piece of paper. It continues to be portable, as we have to store the track during the week for other people to use the hall. However this has never been a problem as the sections are pinned down extensively to 18mm thick chipboards, which simply push together then fastened with a clamp.
Electrical continuity is ensured by a ring of trailer cable which runs around the complete circuit to plug and socket connections at the ends of every board where power is fed into the track. The whole thing has proved very durable over the years and as a result we have remained faithful to plexytrack, though some is Hornby and some SCX.
Nearly all our racing is done without magnets, but Formula One we retain them, indeed we embrace them as we permit any number of them per car. F.1 should be the fastest racing and it is, with 4 more laps being achieved than any other category over 2.5 minutes of racing.
Our most recent change was to install brake and boost controls for every lane. At each controller plug socket the driver is able to adjust the resistance in his brake circuit as well as the amount of effective voltage available, on a scale of 1 to 5. The brake control smoothes out the stop dead characteristic of magnet cars, making them feel more ‘normal’ as you judge your braking for a corner, and the boost control evens out the difference between motor performance levels, enabling you to win with a standard Mabuchi ‘S’ quite easily as giving a 30,000rpm super Mabuchi more boost can make it impossibly difficult to drive.
With all the changes we can make, our grids are varied for any given category, and we have 6, where for each there is a separate club championship F.1, Sports Prototypes, G.T., Touring Cars, Rallycross and Nascar.
Then as a complete change we have the Clubcar Handicap. Here every member races the same 6 cars that are provided by the club, and a handicap system is used to even out driver standards throughout the year. At the moment we are using scratch built Lotus Cortina’s built for us by our club secretary, Derek Moore.
The results give us a surprise nearly every year.
Our perpetual trophies reflect the history of past winners and are much coveted by the members.
Roy Charlesworth retired this year and immigrated to the Philippines with his new wife, but before he went he paid us one last visit.
He had not been to the club or raced for a number of years, and he was pleasantly surprised to find the club in good health, still in the place he had left it.
We are a relatively old club, with quite a rich history, of which I have here, but scratched the surface. We aim to be around for quite a time to come, keeping the spirit of the 60’s alive. |