After much logistics and sorting old from new, a short amount of practice was enjoyed by those who had brought their cars to try out the new track. From February 28th the championship shall continue and the normal race schedule shall resume. The committee will decide how to account for the missed weeks racing in due course. Probably have an additional week at the end, Chris and Shane will confirm in the coming weeks.
Shane has bought new tables for club members to use. Can everyone ensure they use a pit towel to ensure the tables stay in good condition.
Just a quick announcement regarding the moving evening of Friday 21st February. Obviously the main aim of the evening is to have a smooth move from Innsworth to Oxstalls. Directions on how to get to Oxstalls can be found here. We will be opening the hall up at 6:30pm as normal, and then beginning to load up a lorry that Paul has kindly enabled us to use. We are hoping to be over to Oxstalls by 7:30pm. We would appreciate some volunteers in helping with the move, and so those willing and able could you please let me know.
Once at Oxstalls, we will be setting up the racking and sorting the storage room as required. Once this is sorted, we are then aiming to look at the best layout of the hall for race nights. We want to look at the maximum track size that we can have in order to be able to set out a suitable amount of tables to pit also, and so this will involve rolling out the carpet, and looking at what space is left, and adjusting accordingly. We are obviously going to try and run as big of a track as possible eventually, however please be patient in that it will take a few weeks to get all the new parts ordered and prepared, and also work out the best way of doing things. If we are able, we MAY be able to run a bit of a practice, however we are not guaranteeing this, and are not going to guarantee the size/state/condition of the track. This will be a bonus rather than an expectation, so please don't turn up expecting a run around.
The race night will then hopefully be back towards normality on 28th February, albeit at a different venue! As the 21st is therefore not a racing night, we will rerun the championship on another night. This will most likely be the last Friday of this championship, and so we will be running the Touring Car and GT12 championships on the same night, as a one off. We also have an updated club timetable for racing at Oxstalls.
Cheers all Chris and Committee
The Committee have updated the rules and information for all club members. This updated is to help all members of GERCC to ensure everyone has a safe and fun time racing and enable the transition to the new venue to be as smooth as possible. Important information regarding club members obligations to helping with the smooth running of club nights are covered. Please take a look.
Shane and Chris have been searching for a new venue for some time now and they have exciting news to share. A new venue has been found and GERCC will be moving to the new location February 21st 2014. The last evening of racing at Innsworth Community Hall, our current location will be February 14th 2014. A group of volunteers will be moving all our equipment on the 21st February and the first evenings proper racing will be Friday 28th February. The venue is significantly larger and with some great work by the committee and Mark Giaquinto it looks like we have acquired new carpet to be able to make best use of the larger venue. Our current track is 16mx10m, however we now have the carpet and space to run up to 30mx14m. Read more here.
Although this is very exciting, please be patient with the club in being able to run up to this size immediately. It may take a few weeks at least to grow up to this size. We need to now arrange for additional track to be ordered, delivered, prepared and moved to the hall, and we also need to speed up the process of assembling and dissembling the track to ensure that we can keep within the timescale's, without affected race time.
To help make sure the club is able to get the track built and put away in a timely fashion a new timetable will be introduced. See details of the proposed evening timetable here. Important times are doors open at 6:30pm, booking in from 7:10pm - 7:30pm.
Racing will re-start after the Christmas break on 3rd January 2014 for the Touring Car championship. GERCC hopes everyone had a great Christmas and wishes all racers a Happy New year. See you in 2014.
The annual prize giving will be held on 20th December 2013 for both Winter and Summer championships. The 2013 Winter and Summer 10th scale Touring Car championship senior and junior awards will be presented to the top 3 drivers in each class. The GT12 Winter and Summer championship senior and junior championship will be award, again for the top 3 drivers in each class. Along with the championship trophies there will be a range of individual trophies for Top Drivers in both senior and junior, most improved senior and junior, as well as the Bill Massey Award, The Tony Edwards award and the perseverance award. On the night there will be the annual festive caravan racing and also best dressed car award.
Chris and Shane would like to welcome two new committee members, Karen Edwards and Martin Bennett. Karen’s main role will be the looking after the rule management of the Club, making sure club members are following the rules set down by the BRCA and the Committee. Karen will also be the monitoring the rostrum, making sure drivers are respecting the club and each other.
Martin’s main role will be the looking after the track its maintenance and design, putting a bit of science into track design finding out what works and what does not work, he will also be assisting in race refereeing
In GT12 Mark Giaquinto won comfortably ahead of Robin Schumacher in leg 1 and 2 giving Mark the overall win. Robin Schumacher was keen to chat with his Gloucester sponsored drivers, adding a bit of pressure to Kai's and others qualifying. At this time Mark Giaquinto, Chris Gunter, Kai Grainger, Judy Walker, Shane Walker and James Curtis are sponsored by Schumacher racing. Its good to see that a large UK RC racing manufacture has such faith in the Gloucester club. A strong performance qualifying for the GT12 A-final from Gloucester were Martin Simms and Ryan Edwards. Martin finished 4th in the first leg and 5th in the second leg, improving on his 5th place qualifying. Ryan worked hard to qualify in 6th for the A-final, a great performance ahead of some much more experience GT12 racers as Ryan has only been racing the GT12 for a short while. In the GT12 B-final Shane comfortably won both his finals giving him a good result for the day, winning every race he raced in, although in touring car Shane might have proved once and for all that the Schumacher Mi5 is best suited in rear motor configuration for large tracks.
In GT12 Anthony Harris and Charlie Taylor qualified 8th and 3rd respectively with Charlie going one better in his final to finish a very respectful 2nd with a consistent, error free run and having the 2nd fasted lap to boot. In 17.5T Father and son duo Adam and Paul Bedford qualified 10th for the D-final and 2nd for the E-final respectively. With only two place separating them in qualifying it was Paul who improved on his qualifying position to finish first in leg one and 4th in the second leg. Adam had issues in both his finals leaving him down in 10th place for each leg.
The next two rounds are on 12th January 2014, there were some very limited spaces left so sign up if you fancy some indoor winter racing on a large track.
Details of the winter championship are here.
The club has been for some time looking for a new larger venue to run the club. A tentative plan is starting to emerge and we will keep you updated with progress on the website. Nothing is confirmed yet but Chris and Shane are having discussions and hope to make a decision soon.
The 2013-14 CWIC takes place at the Christie Miller Sports Centre near Chippenham, between October 2013 and March 2014 (see here for dates) and has classes for Touring Cars (13.5T ‘Boosted’ and 17.5 ‘Blinky’), GT12, Mini, and 1:12 Scale.)
Its a very friendly competition and always well support by local Gloucester Club drivers. Booking in can be done online here.
Making their BTCC nationals debut were Kai Grainger and Ryan Edwards. The Team Associated tent had a local feel to it with Kyle Gardner, Judy Walker, Olly Jefferies, Chris Gunter and as a one off special filling in for Shane Walker, Chris Baldwin made an appearance in modified driving Shane's car. Saturday of the BTCC offers a chance to practice and set up the car and gazebo's, the actual competitive racing starts Sunday as it is officially a one day event but most drivers make the most of the Saturday and with the weather like it was being warm, sunny and not much wind it was a very pleasant way to spend the day.
At the top of the racing tree there some significant changes with sponsored Schumacher drivers trying out the Mi5 chassis, would this be Chris Grainger's come back year? Elliot Harper has switched from the huge global Tamyia team to join the unknown in the Touring Car fraternity of Team Durango, he also has new electronics sponsors in the form of Orca. New car and electrics is a bold, brave move considering Durango have not made a Touring Car platform before. Olly seemed relaxed, defending champion on home turf laughing and joking with his team mates.
Qualifying would see Elliot Harper on spectacular form, over 3 seconds ahead of Olly and 4 seconds Chris Grainger. Making the A-final in Super Stock (13.5T) was Chris Gunter putting in a excellent qualifying performance. Kai Grainger did well qualifying 23rd, just one place behind event organizer Mark Musgrove. Kai seems to have a natural driving talent, smooth, fast and composed on this huge outdoor circuit that most people find intimidating at first.
In the finals Elliot continued his form and comfortably won the event. Chris and Olly battled for 2nd spot and in a do or die moment on the last corner of the last chicane Chris made a blast for the timing loop and piped Olly to 2nd. It was a move than had about a 50/50 chance but this time worked out as he passed Olly in the air and just low enough for his transponder to be counted, on a different day he would have missed the timing loop all together and smashed his car into the unforgiving side wall.
Please read the updated rules for both touring car and GT12. Important changes regarding motors to both classes. Touring Car motors shall be 13.5T and GT12 is 21.5T for 2 cell and 13.5T for single cell lipo. For all the details, see the updated rules section.
The Summer Championship has started. Please read the changes in format to the championship that will score championship points on alternate weeks between GT12 and Touring Car.
Also please note that from 3rd May 2013 no oil based additives are to be used in GT12 or Touring Car classes. This is to ensure we preserve the condition of the carpet. See previous news item below for more details.
The gallery page has been updated with pictures from Gloucester Quays Grand Prix.
The Gloucester Quays Grand Prix showcased the cream of British racing talent to promote the sport, engage with spectators and Andy Moore was crowned champion in the exciting Reedy race format. The event was a fantastic success drawing in the crowds, receiving great media coverage from local radio, local TV news, RedRC website and created quite the buzz on Facebook.
Gloucester drivers made a strong show with Chris Baldwin and Jamie Curtis coming 2nd and 3rd respectively in the GT12 A-final. Chris Gunter and Mark Giaquinto performed well both making the final 8 in Touring Car. Ryan Edwards came 2nd in the B-final of GT12 and Kai Grainger came 3rd in the B-final for Touring Cars.
Olly Jefferies was unfortunate to miss out on the win coming 2nd to Andy Moore. All weekend both drivers looked on amazing form. They had both equal points, winning every one of their races. It would come down to the final race where they started both from the back of the grid. The scene was set for an amazing final race. Unfortunately in the 3rd corner a coming together of 4 cars from the front of the grid meant Andy and Olly arrived at the corner into a bunch of stationary cars. Andy picked a line and luckily only clipped a couple of cars, making it through unscathed. Olly was not so lucky, hitting one of the cars head on and damaging his front left wheel arch of his shell. For a while it looked like the damage was superficial with Olly and Andy making it to 1st & 2nd by the end of the first lap. However, down the straight Olly's car was skittish and turning into corners looked problematic. Ultimately Olly tried everything to pass Andy but the damage was pulling his car to the side down the straight and his front left wheel was rubbing the body shell during corners.
The Gloucester stand received good number of visitors with Tim, Ashley, Tony and others manning the stand all weekend to answer questions and give visitors information about our club.
More photos available from Gloucester Electric Racing Car Facebook page and BRCA Facebook pages. The gallery has been updated with photos from the event.
The winter championship is entering the final phase. Mark Giaquinto and Chris Gunter are leading the Touring Car championship. Mark has the lead at this stage in the championship and is in a strong position. In GT12 Jamie Curtis and Dave Beeby are leading the championship with only a few points between them.
The summer championship starts 3rd May. More details of the rules and dates can be found here. The summer 2013 championship is a slightly different format. Both Touring Car and GT12 shall be run every week, but only every other week will the points count towards either the GT12 or TC championship results. This format was heavily discussed and voted on by GERCC members on the forum pages. If you haven't already signed up, I recommend you join in and get involved in the discussions. The format allows people to experiment with settings in the non championship weeks for their class and will not hinder people who miss the occasional weeks racing.
In recent weeks the condition of the carpet has deteriorated significantly due to the increased additives being laid down in part by the popularity of the GT12 class. The carpet is arguably the most important component of racing at Gloucester. It is essential that the club preserve the condition of the carpet.
At the recent 12th world championship they had a similar problem, the mixture of water based additives and oil based creates a nasty slime that reduces grip for all classes and stays soaked into the carpet. Oil based additives don't evaporate the same as water based additives so that the carpet stays soaked week after week and over time becomes more and more soaked. 
The committee has asked all drivers to avoid using oil based additives for the remaining of the winter championship in GT12 and Touring Car. CS Competition Grip and CS High Grip are in common use for foam tires, are oil based and should not be used. For the remaining weeks of the current championship it shall be based on a gentleman's agreement not to use oil based additive. During the next championship, oil based additives shall be banned from GT12 and Touring Car. Water based additives are fine, such as LRP carpet, Nosram carpet and Jack the Gripper for GT12 and Touring Car.
Gloucester club will be well represented at the showcase event, Gloucester Quays Grand Prix that starts Saturday 13th April and continues Sunday 14th April. Adrian asked for volunteers to help set up the track and displays Friday afternoon. If you are able to help, please contact Adrian via e-mail.
Adrian has the following to say:
Commercial support for the race has been remarkable and we have had a fantastic response from nearly all the major distributors and manufacturers, they are all supporting the free drivers raffle, we have a fantastic range of prizes and we are very close to allocating two prizes to every driver entered, I would thank all these companies but as this is a constantly growing list I will do that once the list is complete, needless to say they will all have their logos on your drivers passes. All drivers and helpers will also receive a goody bag at booking in with a number of gifts included.As well as industry sponsors we have support from some of the shops in the centre and local business.On to the race stuff. We will be running a Reedy Race format for the top 32 qualifiers in the touring class and grid orders will be as per traditional Reedy Race format. If anyone has a 1:12 car they would like to bring a long for a demo race at some point during the weekend that would be great.
More info on Central Booking.....
Updated rules are available for GT12, Touring Car and 12th scale. Please read the relevant sections under the the rules. Also being trailed is a racing referee to ensure drivers are using appropriate etiquette during qualifying and finals. Adrian has been to the club over the past few weeks providing advice, guidance and race refereeing. All drivers should ensure they read the rules and listen to the race referee during race evenings. Remember during qualifying you are racing the clock, the more incidents you have the slower your time!
Gloucester Electric racing car club was well represented at the Chippenham Winter Indoors Championship. 2012 British National Champion, Olly Jefferies won the touring car championship with Kyle Gardner coming in 2nd. Mark Giaquinto and Chris Gunter were 5th and 7th respectively. Congratulation to all the Gloucester drivers who took part. Chippenham is a great series and always well attended by local drivers. Its run over the winter between Nov and March, if you would like to know more speak to one of the people in the photo above or check out the link below.
In the superstox Chris Baldwin narrowly missed out of the top spot by just 1 point coming in 2nd with Chris Lovell coming in 4th. Well done to both of them.
For more information see Chippenham Winter Indoors Championship...
