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Last weekend myself and some fellow club members (Kettering Model Car Club) entered & raced at the 24 hour event held at Ardent Raceway indoor venue near Nottingham in the UK.

The premise of the race is that the start & finish co-insides with the real LeMans 24 hour race. All the cars are the same (HPI Sprint 2), HPI BMW M3 GTR bodyshells with LED light kit, a hand-out 17.5 SpeedPassion B.L motor & 2 sets of Sorex '32' tyres with 'blingy' Chrome HPI wheels - all these parts were supplied by Ardent as part of the entry fee, the treaded tyres/wheel that are supplied with the kit are also kept for use during designated 'wet' sessions during the race

In all, 10 teams entered & we were really pleased to finish 4th overall in this our 1st attempt at the event, considering two of the teams above us had entered the first 24 hr event held at the same venue last year. The winning team also included drivers that raced last year too - although the team as a whole was new to the event.

Anyway, here's some pictures that I took;

Our car, I painted the shell in the colours/design of our club chairman who sadly passed away last year;









All the cars lined up in grid order before the race;



Some of the other entrant's cars;















TBC

You guys know how to have fun! How did you do a rain session on a carpet track?? Or did you race out side? Did you guys have a dark session as well?

Very cool, I did something like this with HO slotcars a few times with day and night sessions! Great fun!

Damn! That's cool what a great idea!

The veiw of the track from the rostrum;





KMCC team members - the lettering on our custom made Tshirts & hoodies glowed in the dark!!



Team members Paul & Ben in the pits, Ben checking the schedule on the laptop (we did battery & driver changes every 20mins) - the red 'thing' is the nose cone from a GP2 car, with car audio speakers & amp fitted.... it busted out the 'choons' for much of the 24 hours adding to the party atmosphere



Marking out the pit area for various spares also charged battery area



Pits during the race;



Racing at night.... it was darker than the pic suggests & takes some getting used to when driving (especially after having little/no sleep!)





The rather sorry looking tyres - we were eventually allowed to purchase a 3rd set at many of the team's tyres were almost completely shot by the Sunday morning;



Our car after the event - the shell suprisingly intact, we experienced very few problems with the car during the 24 hours - just one broken steering arm, a lost bearing from the steering assembly & the servo saver kept coming loose - but that was it - very impressive for a pre-built RTR car



The cars as they finished;

slotcarrod wrote:You guys know how to have fun! How did you do a rain session on a carpet track?? Or did you race out side? Did you guys have a dark session as well?

Very cool, I did something like this with HO slotcars a few times with day and night sessions! Great fun!

The wet sessions were called & the teams have to immediately change to their wheels & tyres for the treaded ones (in a photo above) that were all retrieved randomly from one big box. The idea of these is that they give very little grip - this worked for the first wet session, but for the 2nd session teams (who were allowed to hang onto their set) had 'prepped' these tyres on truers & applied additive - so they gripped as well as the slicks!!

Slot car 24hr sounds cool but intense!!

My idea to improve the event would be to have it at an outdoor pavement track with real daylight, and night with minimal lighting! The rain could be sprinklers set up on sections of the track. Not hard to waterproof, you UK guys should already be good to go for that!

I think none the less, it's a great event!

thats awesome! i know they hold one in germany as well with tamiyas. them cars look like they ran 24 hours thats for sure.


love enduro racing as a whole. would love to do something like that.

slotcarrod wrote:My idea to improve the event would be to have it at an outdoor pavement track with real daylight, and night with minimal lighting! The rain could be sprinklers set up on sections of the track. Not hard to waterproof, you UK guys should already be good to go for that!

I think none the less, it's a great event!

The lights over the track were never switched on throughout the race - during the day there is plenty of nice natural light from the skylights in the roof, at night-time the only illumination comes from the lit-up pits area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLCUYZlOKbA&feature=youtu.be

I understand where you are coming from regarding running outside on a tarmac track.... but i'm glad it was indoors, if we had run on an outdoor track last weekend the whole race would have naturally wet - with rain falling for much of the time (as is normal for a British summer ) - this i'm sure would play havoc with the reliability of the car over 24 hours & on tarmac we would certainly get through more sets of tyres than we did on carpet.

WOW! I am in awe For someone who has never ever raced an RC car this looks like an amazing event to rival full size motorsports.

And those beautifully painted BMW shells sure look second hand after the event!

Incidentally, I didn't even know about the Ardent Raceway, and I live nearby... Looks like a cool track... Sadly I see on their website that it has been closed and they are looking for a new venue.

cunawarit wrote:WOW! I am in awe For someone who has never ever raced an RC car this looks like an amazing event to rival full size motorsports.

And those beautifully painted BMW shells sure look second hand after the event!

Incidentally, I didn't even know about the Ardent Raceway, and I live nearby... Looks like a cool track... Sadly I see on their website that it has been closed and they are looking for a new venue.

Thanks I have been buzzing all week after the event!

The shells actually did very well considering - last year they ran Porsche 911 shells & some apparently had little more than the square of lexan between the body posts left! I painted the shell on our car - it probably took longer to paint than it did to destroy LOL!

Yes it is a shame about the venue but i'm afraid they have become victims of their own success - apart from the failed MotoArena at Silverstone (over ambitous & run by non R/C people), Ardent is probably the only race-centre of its type in the UK that is run as a business - most other places are purely clubs run by volunteers & hence attracts the attention of the local authorities with regard to health & safety requirements. We spoke to the owner (John) over the weekend & he is hopefull that he has found another more suitable premises.

I hope he does find a location nearby, looks great and so close to home that it would be very tempting to take the old TL-01 for regular practice sessions.

I haven't been to that track but I have heard that its awesome. I hope they find a new venue soon though because I plan on making a return to racing next year. Those photos remind me of how fun racing was for me.

I have to ask, is that safety car really an actual safety car and did it ever get used? If so what for?

That is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in rc racing. The track after dark looks like a REAL challenge. Enduro racing sure adds an interesting element to the racing!!

This is so cool. I've done some pretty insane RC endurance racing, but nothing even close to 24 hours in length.

So here's the real question: How could you give up watching the 24 Hours of LeMans in order to race RC cars? LOL!