6 hour Deathstar Enduro at Uncle Kals May 11th 2002

The first enduro race for 2002 was held on the Hillclimb track on May 11th 2002. A full field took to the line for the start of this unusual and unique event. The racing part was quite straightforward, race for 6 hours with a 3 person team rotating the driving duties, but that was not the end of it. Before a team could race they had to build their car from scratch, and prepare a concourse body, and they only had one hour to do it.

All of the teams underestimated the time required to build the car and to prepare the body, so at the conclusion of the 1 hour build time, and race start at 2:00pm it was an unusual sight, a track full of marshalls (teams were penalised if they did not have a marshall ready), power on the track but no cars racing. First to finish their car and to pass through tech at about 2:15 was Wreckless Racing, with the rest of the teams trickling through tech and concourse up until about 2:40pm. This meant Wreckless Racing had a massive 80 lap lead over the Green Sharks at the end of the first heat, thanks to getting their car finished and racing before anyone else. From first to last at the end of the first heat was a massive 232 laps.

The concourse competition part of the race was great, with an exceptionally high standard being reached by all the teams, and with bonus laps plus part of the payout up for grabs the competition was hot. Team Battle Slots were the winners, and took the 50 laps bonus which almost put them into 3rd at the race end. Their car was a superbly detailed Toyota GT 1. 2nd in concourse was Team Jenny Craig, with a superbly polished and detailed JK Scorpion chassis, and great looking original body. 3rd in concourse was Team Driven with a great looking Gulf Audi R8.

The racing was fast and furious all day long, and with the added hazards of absolutely no track calls during raicng time, everyone had to be very careful and avoid accidents at all costs. This added to the excitement and every team at some team fell victim to the crashes. The lights were turned out at the start of heat 3, and would stay out until the end of heat 6, leaving drivers to race under the blacklights, with cars only being visible through the use of fluorescent paints. This was a great experience for all the racers, and surprisingly the lap times did not drop off at all as the teams raced through the simulated night conditions. Into the last heat under the blacklights, team Wreckless Racing was still holding a strong lead over the Green Sharks, and up until then had enjoyed a faultless run, however it was not to last. In the 6th heat they struck trouble, and had to change a motor and repair some major crash damage, dropping them to within strilking distance for the Green Sharks. At the end of the 6th heat Wreckless Racing had just an 11 lap lead over the Green Sharks, and this would turn around into a 2 lap lead at the end of heat 7 for the Green Sharks, very close after more than 5 hours of racing. The final 44 minute heat was close with both teams running side by side for much of it, but the Green Sharks were too strong, edging out to a 6 lap lead in the heat to take the race by 8 laps over Wreckless Racing, not much of a margin after 6 hours of racing.

After a slow start to the race Team Driven had been steadily climbing up the leader board and as other teams struck trouble they motored on relatively trouble free, changing tires only once and running on the same motor for the whole race. They were locked in a race long battle for 3rd with the Battle Slots team, and moved into 3rd past the Battle Slots after they struck trouble in the 5th heat. From then on Team Driven put in a steady performance right to the end to hold off a late race charge by Battle Slots to hold onto 3rd. After the concourse laps were added to the race totals it was close between these two teams, with concourse winners Battle Slots eventually finishing only 23 laps behind Team Driven.

Team Chaos had run strongly early on, then faded, then came back towards the end of the race to only be 50 laps behind the Battle Slots team to take 5th place. Team Fubar ran strongly through the middle of the race, but struck a lot of car problems early on, leaving them chasing all race. They did break the 3000 lap barrier and put in a strong heat on Yellow for 460 laps, and were just over 100 laps down on Team Chaos at the flag. Team Jenny Craig was locked in a battle with Team Chaos for a lot of the race, however they finally threw in the towel in the final heat when their motor finally refused to run anymore. They had enough laps on Team KMA to lock up 7th so did not return to the track.The final team, Team KMA had 8th placed locked up for most of the day, and it seemed they went from disaster to disaster. Their car at the end barely resembled a slot car, but nevertheless they did make the finish running at the flag.

Overall it was a great fun event and everyone is looking forward to the next of these great events.

6 Hour Enduro Teams