Conncourse 300

The Background

The club, spurred on by Ken's love of Springtime racing, has started a six-course race competition.  Unlike other race leagues, this one will span several genres and ages.  Racers take their top four finishes and add up the points to be declared the "Racing Champion" for 2015 (there's also a spiffy traveling trophy presented to the winner).

The first race was 54mm Roman chariot racing.  The event was well-covered at The Penny Whistle blog.  In short, Ken took first, I took second and Jon Mark took third.  With that in mind, I hosted the second race of the 'season':  The Conncourse 300.

The board and cars used were from the defunct WizKids game, Race Day.  The rules were Going the Distance.  Slightly smaller than Matchbox cars, the styrene vehicles are punched from baseball card-sized sheets and assembled.  The white edges I colored to match the cars' paint jobs.  I think the effect was good.

It was a full house.  The participants of the night's game were Greg, Jon Mark, Bill, Terry, Ken, Carl and myself.  We each had two cars (Jeff Gordon was not selected) and high expectations.  After I explained the nuances of the track (lanes ending and starting in corners, 'A' compound tires, drafting and pit stops) and laps/field dice (five laps and 3d6 field dice), we were ready to roll.

Note - Sorry for light bulb glare in any pics.  Unavoidable, really.  Also, the big marker (HeroClix figure) visible in some photos is the 1st place indicator.

The Race

Starting positions

Greg won the pole position, followed closely by the rest of us.  The race started well, with the inevitable gridlock in the first turn for the cars toward the back of the pack.

Positions after 1st moves

Positions after 1st Field Move

Due to the nature of the track, lane changes had to be made, but options were limited for players wanting to play it safe.  There was also a lot of "team tactics" (Jon Mark's words), where a player's second vehicle would purposefully hold up the pack in order for his first vehicle to advance unhindered.  Hilarity ensued as a combination of solid tactics, taking advantage of situations and crappy dice rolls kept everyone in the race.

Only a couple of vehicles DNF, but plenty of walls and cars were hit as everyone tried to jockey for hard-fought positions.

Carl's doom

The reason I chose five laps instead of the usual three became clear later in the race, as people had to pit or DNF.  This caused another set of 'choke points', as access to the pits was limited to only a few spaces.

Pit stop

We were in the middle of lap four when a couple of players stated they needed to get home and to bed (early risers/workers), so we had to cut the race a little short. It's a shame really, as every position was heavily contested and the final outcome was far from resolved.  Still, people have to work, so we called it.

End Results

1st: Jon Mark
2nd: Terry
3rd: Ken
4th: Greg
5th: Ted
6th: Bill

Another enjoyable evening with the gang!  Next week is F1 racing from Japan.  Watch for the AAR on The Penny Whistle.