(No monkeys were injured in the making of this report)
By Neil Hirst

Thursday 19th June
With a scheduled flight at 6.30pm, Nick & I (& Holsten ‘Monkey’ Kid) arrived at Liverpool airport in good time at 2.00pm. We both then went on the look out for Mark Andrews, Lee Andrews & Shaun Mitchell who we found relaxing. After a short time we all went to check in with our luggage. After a while waiting in the queue we weighed our luggage to find the pink case me & Nick was sharing (nicks case) went slightly over the 15 Kilo limit by 5-6. We then swiftly transferred some of our belongings into everyone else’s baggage with the long queue behind us not looking too amused. In the end we managed to get the weight down to 17 Kilo’s which the lady behind the desk gingerly let through. After some food, nattering & banter about nicks pink luggage bag it was time to board the plane. Following a smooth flight & landing we went to obtain our pre-booked rented car. It was decided it might be a good idea to hire a GPS system; this proved a very wise investment (better than a Google map). We located our hired BMW estate to find various scratches & bumps so Mark notified the salesman to note this down. Mark was the driver and drove us to our hotel in Luino After about 2 hours, a few toll roads, tight bends & 1 or 2 tunnels along the way; James Hunt & Steve Hills were waiting outside the hotel to greet us. Once checked into the hotel we all had a chat with a couple of beers with the exception of James who was consuming some kind of rocket fuel.

Friday 20th July
In the morning we woke up to a stunning view of an enormous clear lake, Boats, mountains & sun. Nick & I went for breakfast to find we were somewhat later than the rest because we hadn’t changed our clock forward. After a decent breakfast we all went to explore a bit of the area with a stroll on the side of the lake. With the practice session not until 6.30pm that evening we decided to take a short trip & locate where the venue was which we successfully did. Once we located the venue we had the other important job of choosing where to have lunch. Steve, James & Shaun went to a pizza restaurant while the rest of us went to check out the local supermarket. Once our lunch was sorted it was soon time to head to the venue for the practice session of 4 hours. Once we entered the building it was soon clear that most, if not all of the teams were already present. After weighing up the track, facility’s etc it was our first job to decide which car we was going to use, the Porsche 956 or the Jaguar. After some minor tweaks to both of the cars the team decided that the smart looking Porsche was the better option.

Saturday 21st July
At about 8.30pm we headed to the track to pitch up our spot and get prepared for scrutinering & the 24 hours of racing that was ahead of us. With the race starting a 3.00pm we had planned to re implement the lighting kit in morning but we were unfortunately one of the first to be scrutinized. Credit to Steve Hills coolness he put the lighting kit together in record time also with a nifty switch near the air vent to activate the light & off. Each team was given a plastic container to store spares and various bits in which could only be accessed when pitting under surveillance from race officials. After a Drivers briefing it was time for one driver from each team to get a quickest lap as possible in 2 minutes, each team qualified alone on the same lane. Steve Hills was our qualifying driver and he did a superb job putting us in 22nd place. After the qualifying session was completed it was then the build-up for the start of the race with random catchy music & a display of all the competing cars on the track. Steve Hills gathered onto to the gantry with the other 39 competing drivers to start the race while the rest of us were watching trackside with great anticipation. With all the Slot.it cars lined up, a countdown started & it was go. The race format was fairly simple with each team racing on all 8 lanes but only on 3 of the 5 tracks. Each lane was raced on for 55 minutes before the lane change took place. Each team member had to race a minimum & a maximum amount of time. We had a rotation system that each driver completed the full 55 minutes on one lane. The first driver up for us was Steve who put in a superb run with over 270 laps completed in the first session. Mark Andrews was always keeping a close eye on the racing & encouraging the team, making notes on whom should be driving & marshalling which was very important because if our group didn’t marshal we would loose 15 laps instantly & double the laps the leader does in the time of the absents marshal. Mark also noted how long each driver had raced for, all this was a great help on keeping everything running efficiently especially during the night sessions. Nick requested to race on the outside lanes because they seemed to suit his driving style and he did a solid job. The next few lanes were going pretty good. In the middle of the 6th session the car was looking very bouncy so we tightened the motor, changed the tyres & gave the car a quick clean. The car was looking good & Shaun incredibly clocked in a 10.954 lap time, the fastest time of the event so far, he even manage a little dance to acknowledge his achievement. This new found pace in the car & Shaun’s fastest lap gave us a real boost & we started to get a momentum going into the night.

Sunday 22nd July
That momentum came to an end atl about 2.15pm when Lee Andrews who was very quick throughout the event made Nick aware about the cars lack of speed and stability. An unscheduled pit stop was forced upon us & it wasn’t good news. We hadn’t fitted the adapter for the motor to keep it secure in the mount; this resulted in the pinion & tyre being shredded. This cost us about 702 seconds about 100 laps in total but other teams had their own problems as well. Once the car was sorted it looked superb and we were back on the pace. We were now playing catch up and chasing down 3 teams. We all put in some excellent laps in since the breakdown and we were chasing two teams in front of us Brescia Corse Slot & La Contea dello Slot. At this point everyone was exhausted and had their own way of keeping their concentration. While I waited for my final session I asked Nick what James was doing, at first I thought he was shouting at himself but it it turned out he was singing to ‘The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go Now’ while racing, he was really getting into it. This tactic seemed to be working as James was racing very nicely indeed. It was then my last race after James, i was really enjoying the car & the middle lane, I managed my best number of laps 272. We were now past La Contea dello Slot and on the tails of Brescia Corse Slot, Step up Lee & Sean. Both Lee & Shaun put in 268 laps on the outside lane in the last 2 heats which put us 10 laps ahead of Brescia Corse. When the race was over it was an amazing feeling that we nicked a couple of places up to 23rd place. It was a solid result for us with a sense of a achievement. Before the race I think we would have taken 23rd but without the small problems we could have been at least in the top 20 but that's racing. It was now time for the presentations with every team being presented with a medal & the top five teams receiving very nice trophies. After the racing we went to a pizza restaurant then it was straight t o bed for 9.00pm

Monday 23rd July
After a good nights sleep it was time to get our belongings together & check out of the hotel. We all relaxed outside in the hot sun reflecting on the 24hr race. At midday it was time for James & Steve to say their farewells & head off to the airport. Our flight wasn’t scheduled until 10.05pm that evening, so we killed some time by having a walk on the side of the lake stopping at a couple of bars for drinks & ice creams. Us being responsible & mature people we had a competition on a seesaw to see who was the heaviest, it would be impolite of me to mention the outcome so make up your own mind. On the way back to the hotel I went for a little swim in the lake (in my boxers) while the others were skimming. We then arrived outside the hotel & had another drink in the shade apart from me who was in the sun drying off, and then we set off back to the airport with the temperature at 36d come tea time. Once our bags were checked in (ours weighing 15.8 kilo) we went for some food, Shaun having another Italian pizza (no gammon?) for the last time. We all then waited in good time looking at the monitor for our flight number to come up while playing on Lee’s Nintendo DS Mario game to see who could get the quickest race time. We then got a little concerned that our flight number hadn’t come up so we joined the long queue for the passport checks, as we did this, the destination to Liverpool displayed saying ‘Boarding’. The time was 9.45pm and the flight departed at 10.05pm. Panic on our faces and others started to kick in, the queue got bigger & bigger with people in the same situation not knowing what was going on. Once passed the passport check point everyone was lightly jogging to queue for boarding with the Information display changing to ‘last call’. Everyone was looking anxious, turning round asking each what was going. We then hoped onto a bus jammed packed in like sardines & walkied onto the Ryan Air plane with a far few passengers already on waiting for us. This was the end of the Slot.it 24h experience & what a fantastic few days it was.

It was an incredible experience racing in a 24h race of this magnitude especially at night with minimal light apart from the headlight & brakes with little lighting around the track corners, that was brilliant. The racing side was an extra bonus because the rest of the stay was very much entertaining with all the antics going on.

A big Thanks to our sponsors, Pendle Slot Racing, Slot.it, Truspeed, & Gecals, Everyone in the team you were immense, a extra thanks to Mark Andrews for driving a few of us here & there. Im not biased but I believe we were the smartest looking team with our shirts, thanks James.