The second round of the Western Suburbs Slot Car Club championship once more found itself at the Buskett Gardens Speedway.  The practice sessions were almost non-existent this time around except for the ever-present Luke Portelli and the three rookies Michelle, Josephine and John Paul.   Expectations were high for the home-based ‘Steve Buhagiar Factory Team’, especially following the obvious show of pace during the first round.  The junior team members of the squad had also come of age during the first round and were anxious to prove that the excellent race scores compiled that evening were no mere a fluke.  This was also the case with Tom Portelli, who had given the standings a major shake-up by finding himself on the better side of sixth position; a strange feat considering the fact that he had wanted to establish a second division at the end of last season.  Team C.A.M, with the seemingly bottomless pit of sponsorship money from Blue Seas Foods, was also feeling the pressure from their sponsors to make their hefty outlay pay some dividends (a top three position had been promised).  The G.A.P based team (which will remain nameless because of persistent rumours that they bought the fourth position from Luke), also found itself languishing in 9th position last round with a hefty 22 point gap to the frontrunner.  This will certainly provoke a much riskier approach this round due to the strikingly obvious high level of competition. 

The first group this round was the German DTM category.  Championship leader Steve Buhagiar lost his winning advantage immediately with two appalling DNF’s to finish with a mere 8 points.  Mark (16) clawed his way back into contention with a clean sweep taking the group from second placed Jamie (15), the excellently third placed Joseph and the fourth placed quadruplets, namely, Luke, Mike, Cameron and Michelle who shared the substantial total of 11 points.  Josephine found herself with 9 points following the round through consistent point scoring.  John also fell back to earth with a thud gleaning a mere 6 points although this was still better than the 4 racers ranked below him who did not get past a total of 4 points.

The next group of the evening was Ninco F1.  Unbelievably this group was captured by a racer who does not even own a car in the category; Luke Portelli (15).  Even more surprising was the award of second position which found itself in the hands of young John, who himself, was the highest placed Buhagiar in the group with 13 points.  The senior Buhagiar’s, who had to content themselves with 12 points apiece, were marginally followed by Dominic Grech of all people, who with 3 second placing’s, did enough to grab hold of a very creditable 6th position with 11 points.  Tom and David along with the consistent John Paul secured 10 well earned points without falling to a DNF as had Cameron, who trailed them home with 9 points.  Anthony and Joseph shared 8 points ahead of the fallen Michael who only gathered a pitiful 4 points.  Andrew built upon his earlier DTM points score to garner another 5 points; two more than his friend and mentor Joe. 

 The third event to be run was the NASCAR group which was surprising since this was the host’s worst category of season 2003.  As it turned out Steve was able to put his gremlins to rest by securing a well earned 15 points.  This was only good enough for third, however, as Jamie and Mark had each made a clean sweep by securing the maximum 16 points on offer.  Dominic, John Paul and Josephine once more fell by the wayside earning a shameful 4 points which was little more than the unfortunate Phillip, who only pulled in 2 points !!!  Joe improved in this category to take a season high of 7 – 2  more than Andy.  Anthony did well to earn 10 points which was three more than his siblings who only scored 7 points apiece.  Luke did best of the Portelli trio collecting 10 points while Dave and Tom each took home 8 points.   Cameron snuck into the middle realm with 9 points. 

The last category to be contested was the fast and furious Scalextric GT 40’s.  This group amassed a total of 24 DNF’s , the highest for a category this season.  Many of the top competitors collapsed in this group including Cameron with 4, Luke with 5, Tom with 6 and Steve with 7.  On the flip side of the coin this misfortune for some proved to be the windfall of others.  These included Joe collecting 9 points, David an evening high of 12 as was Michelle’s score of 14.  Michael reclaimed some lost ground with 11 with Joseph doing one better with 12.  John Paul failed to take advantage securing a weak total of 4, as was John’s score of 7.  Phillip upped his own tempo to collect 6, while the rookie Andy (although up to speed) failed to convert his efforts into more than 1 point. 

The evening proved to be a success.  The playing field has more than levelled with the increase in membership and the reduction in groups contested.  The championship though just begun, is being hotly disputed with all competitors in there with a chance to achieve their season long goal of being champions in their own minds.  Looking forward to seein’ ya  all at the Erskine Park International on 28 February at 5.00 pm.

NEXT RACE’S CATEGORIES …

·         Fly Lola’s

·         Fly Others

·         Ninco F1

·         SCX F1