My apologies as this proxy registration list filled up faster than expected but will have a waiting list also as there are a few last minute drops.  You will be competing against builders from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and USA. Please take a look as there are 3 remaining slots. 

LeMans Proxy

Apparently imgur and the UK ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) have had a bit of a disagreement, with the ICO threatening to fine imgur, and imgur responding by blocking all content to the UK.

The new UK age verification rules are in play here I believe.

Anyway, the point is that any images on the forum from imgur are now no longer visible, and we have no idea how long that might last, it could be permanent.

Personally, I would always advise adding any photos or images here on site, using the attachment box underneath the reply section. 

That means they are stored on our servers. It doesn't make them bombproof, but it does at least mean that it's a lot less likely that a corporate decision will suddenly wipe out a whole thread's worth of images.

                                           
Here, from the slot car museum in Houston Texas is a 1/24th set with 2 Lotus cars. The set seems complete. This set was made in 1964, possibly late 1963.

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We're back at the Barn for the final WHO Mod & WHO Tuners night of 2025 - and our first championship decider of the year.

   

The track plan is another of Simon's from 2015 - ten years ago, Tony and Corey were crowned WHO Mod and Mod junior champions.

Going into this race, Andy has a healthy lead, although both Oliver and Pete can clinch the title with a nul points score for the leader. The tuners table is lead by Steve - who sadly wont be scoring any more points - James, Kevin & Kev are all able to overtake him, should they run a Tuners car all night.

   

Hornby have been plugging this across their social media platforms today, having recently commissioned a study on hobbies, screen time and mental health: https://www.hornbyhobbies.co.uk/hornby-h.../unplugged

The most interesting aspect of the study is that UK adults are choosing to reconnect with offline hobbies and experiencing benefits to their mental health. This trend has been reported quite widely and impacts younger Gen-Z adults, with this recent Guardian article also worth a read: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...sy-hobbies

Both articles chime with my experience of meeting new members at WHO Racing - older adults being told (usually by a spouse) to ‘get a hobby’ and younger (mostly Gen-Z) adults either sticking with us having been junior racers or coming in new looking for a regular offline activity.

What we’re not seeing is a significant uptick in parents bringing their kids along since the pandemic. I wonder what’s going on there?

I’m drawing my work on IR lap counting methods into a development system which I am calling System-D.

System-D uses a Mark/Space timing method for lap counting and signal inversion for commanding a lane change. This is a 36 car ID detection system i.e. far too many for most of us.

But does this approach offer anything for Hornby SSD users who want more than six cars on the grid but who don’t wish to splash out on a complete Slot.it oXigen system?

Here very kindly Slot.it have provided a nice cross-compatibility option. Slot.it oXigen decoders can be set up to strobe their IR LEDs on IDs 1-6.

Meanwhile I have a version of In-car Pro firmware for Hornby SSD decoders which can be driven on any of the six Hornby throttles but which strobes its ID on System-D proprietary IDs 7-12.

This provides a potential solution for up to 12 cars.

For this 12 car solution:

Cars 1-6 are controlled by oXigen wireless and they strobe on corresponding SSD IDs 1-6.

Cars 7-12 are controlled by SSD track packets (this of course is limited to six cars) and they strobe on System-D proprietary IDs 7-12.

To protect an investment into an existing Hornby SSD six car setup, while adding oXigen decoders and throttle controller pairs as required… the following is required:

1/ All six SSD decoders need to be upgraded to a special version of ICP firmware which strobes on IDs 7-12. This is called ‘Block B variant’.

2/ A System-D Sensor Hub is required together with high speed 4-phototransistors-in-row sensors.

3/ Race management is via PC LapCounter so a user licence is required.

4/ Since the track would be running up to 12 cars and retaining the Hornby powerbase, some form of high power mod would also be required.

5/ Hornby SSD lane changers with standard firmware remain compatible with all of above.

The above is quite a technical solution and clearly not for everyone … maybe very few … but it trades skilled upgrading for minimal additional cost outlay for users who already own a six car SSD system who need to race additional cars.

This is absolutely not an off the shelf plug-and-play solution - more a discussion of the art of the possible!!!!!

c

   

Intro
so today I will be starting the Road Race Stage 1 in a few hours time. As this is a Road Race there will be no qualifying as such, the cars will be segmented into the 3 Events (Classic, Gran Turismo & Prototypes & GT). There are 5 boxes, and the cars are inserted into foam pockets within the boxes. I have seperated the cars for each event into Modified & ProCars (as I think this will help the drivers to adjust their driving skills accordingly) but otherwise they are not ordered in any way regarding performance.
When the cars have been run for each Event the fastest 3 cars will be photographed on the podium (regardless of Class ie A&B, C&D, E&F)
The points will also be attributed regardless of the Class within the Event.

SCOREBOARD




List of Entrants
   

Entrants Cars Technical Information (Scrutineers Report)
To be inserted, the Scrutineering will be done before I start the 1st Stage. No penalty points will be applied before we start the race, but I reserve the right to do so at the end of the series should I feel that any car has gained an unfair advantage entering a non-compliant car.

               


Scrutineer report

Rounds & Stages 
   

Should any Round not be able to be run due to unforeseen circumstances, we will move on to the next scheduled Round. It can be decided later if that Round can be run at the end of the series or not.


Race Format
Each host will run the cars singly, either on 2 different single lane Stages for "Rally Stage" or on 2 different lanes for "Tarmac Stage". 
All individual Stage/lane finishing positions will be allocated points on an equal basis. I have found that the orginal intended method of combining "stage" results for each round generates an unfair overall handicup to cars which experience a particularly slow run time on just one of the 2 Stages in a round due to a specific track related reason.

Spirit of the Proxy Award
This award goes to the car which has been most selected by the nominated hosts for the 12 rounds, as their choice for the "Spirit of the proxy award" 
The 11 cars as selected by me based on their suitability in regard to Scratchbuild effort, self decoration, and the cars must have been scrutineered as compliant to the technical rules for each Event.

The list of cars eligiable in this context are:
                                                                   




Sponsors (as of today, to be updated)
George Turner Models will again be sponsoring the "Spirit of the Proxy" award.
Amato will again be sponsoring the event with their extensive range of 3d chassis.

If there is any interest I'll document my track build here.
 I'm a newby and thus will be my first build but I have read a lot and watched many YouTube videos. The plan is a single lane track I don't have a huge amount of space but the intention is just to run some cars round. 
My board will be L shaped and go under my model rail layout I have a roughly 8' x 9' of wall space and can go around 2' deep i do have some sketches and ideas for track plans but no fixed idea of theme/setting yet.
I'm gradually gathering bits and bobs together and so far have the router bits and braid I already have a suitable PSU ordered the double sided tape for the braid which turns out is twice as expensive as the braid!.
I was going to fetch the mdf but whilst on holiday in france last week my car decided to blow its turbo so its stranded there for a few weeks!!.
So if anyone wants to follow my trials and tribulations I'll continue posting.
I have some small scrap mdf pieces to practice on to get me started.

   

Dave