November 16, 2001 saw Children In Need Day. For those of you who don’t live in the UK this is a Charity day run by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in aid of Children. We ran a charity event for Comic Relief earlier in the year and this was another opportunity to do it all again.

The general format of the event is as follows; Racers purchase a car for a set amount (£25) and then also raise start line sponsorship (a minimum of £10 for under 14’s and £25 for adults.)

The cars/components, prizes etc. are supplied free of charge by sponsors and the facilities are given free of charge by Riverside so all the money goes to the charity.

The generosity of the sponsors never fails to amaze me for these events and my thanks go out to all who contributed in such a wonderful way. Headline sponsors supplied as follows: Pro-Track Corporation - 40 x Spyder Chassis, Front wheels, Rear Wheels. Slot-It (via Monarch Lines) - V12 motors, motor pinions & Crown Gears SCD -  Guides, Guide nuts and Braids JK Products -  Bodies Riverside Staff and racers built the 40 race cars, painted and mounted bodies etc.

Prize Sponsors: Coca-Cola - Mountain Bike, Football tickets, Tee Shirts, Umbrellas and Bags Monarch Lines - 1/32 Proslot Cars, Formula one limited edition Print and Calendars Ninco - 1/32 Ninco Cars, Betta & Classic - 20 thou 1/32 body shells. F1/R2  Motorsport Merchandise - Tee Shirts and Hats. Professor Motor - Hand controllers to race with and Auction after the event. Riverside - various raffle prizes. In addition Whittle printers printed handouts for the event and these were distributed by Amaro leaflet distributors.

Starting at 6pm racers collect and pay for their cars and log their attained sponsorship. Drivers all got practice and set their cars up until 7pm. Qualifying was 1 minute all laps to count on a lane of choice. >From Qualifying drivers were sorted into heat runs for an 8 x 2 minute race with 1 minute between lane changes. This qualified the top 8 Juniors and Adults for the Finals. The Auction and Raffle prizes were called at 10pm and this was followed by the 2 Finals of 40 laps on a lane of choice from the heat results.

BBC radio called in to interview myself (Andy Brown-Searle) and also Jez Davison on our perceptions of the event. It should be said that Jez (a member of the editorial staff of Business Magazines Group) entered the event after his first experience of slot car racing at a Corporate event run by us for his company. Considering it was his first REAL slot racing event he did very well and also managed to raise a considerable amount of sponsorship from his colleagues.

Top Sponsorship racers were Mike Walters for the adults on £200+ and Adam Radford for the Juniors on £142.00.

Overall and subject to final sponsorship returns we raised approx. £3.2K for the charity and a great nights racing was had by all.

Many thanks go to all Riverside racers who assisted in the construction of cars and race organization, more thanks to the sponsors and a Big Thank You to all the racers who entered the event and made it such a success.

Andy Brown-Searle

POSITION

CLASS

NAME

FINAL

HEAT

QUAL

1

ADULT

JOHN BROWN

40

117.29

7.05

2

ADULT

ANDREW AYNSLEY

39.47

115.28

7.27

3

ADULT

KEVIN THORNTON

39.2

108.57

6.55

4

ADULT

SIMON BAKER

38.3

111.49

6.73

5

ADULT

GEORGE KIMBER

37.72

114.23

7.24

6

ADULT

SIMON VEASEY

36.28

111.49

7.07

7

ADULT

LES BAILEY

34.5

112.9

6.63

8

ADULT

KEN BROUGH

32.39

110.88

6.78

1

JUNIOR

LAURENCE PARKES

40

113.86

7.15

2

JUNIOR

GREAME STEPHENSON

39.98

110.88

7.07

3

JUNIOR

ADAM RADFORD

38.03

105.5

7.24

4

JUNIOR

LEWIS BAKER

35.73

103.1

6.6

5

JUNIOR

ALEX YOUNG

34.71

101.5

7.06

6

JUNIOR

JOHN ADAMDAY

33.39

103.37

6.27

7

JUNIOR

GAVIN ROCHESTER

33.39

98.23

5.04

8

JUNIOR

DAVID WOOD

31.53

101.72

6.6

17

ADULT

MIKE WALTERS

108.21

7.47 (TQ)

18

ADULT

CHAS KEELING

106.93

6.27

19

ADULT

ALAN ROWELL

106.31

6.55

20

ADULT

CHRIS LEES

105.51

6.11

21

ADULT

JAMES MANNING

104.2

7.24

22

ADULT

ANDREW DODDS

102.71

6.67

23

ADULT

MARK WATTAM

101.27

6.13

24

ADULT

DAVID BRADBURN

101.18

6.19

25

ADULT

PETER SIDGWICK

100.27

6.11

26

ADULT

GEOFF WILLIAMS

98.86

5.28

27

ADULT

DAVE LEES

98.31

6.2

28

JUNIOR

GARY SOWERBY

95.59

6.47

29

JUNIOR

ADAM SOUTHERN

91.5

6.39

30

JUNIOR

LUKE HANNAH

91.11

5.25

31

JUNIOR

JAMES MADDISON

90.52

6.12

32

JUNIOR

MATTHEW STEWART

90.5

6.18

33

ADULT

JEZ DAVISON

89.17

6.26

34

ADULT

DAVE PIPKIN

87.32

5.85

35

ADULT

NICHOLE WATTAM

85.2

5.85

36

JUNIOR

JOHNNY TULLY

83.44

4.4

37

JUNIOR

LEWIS WILLIAMS

72.5

5.15

38

JUNIOR

BRADLEY TULLEY

72.07

5.85

Qualifying format - 1 minute, choice of lane, all laps to count.

Heat format - 2 minute segments x 8, all laps to count.

Final format - separate adult & junior finals of 40 laps.

Highest sponsorship Adult - Mike Walters £200+

Highest sponsorship Junior - Adam Radford £140 +