York 24 Hour race - EBOR24

EBOR 24-Hour electric off-road race - York, England, 4th&5th December 2010

This is the second running of the York Off Road Car Club's 'EBOR24' - 24 hour electric buggy endurance race. The previous event was held almost two years previous and the all-conquering HPI team took the victory with their Cyber10b 4WD machine.

24 hours is a pretty long time to race a car round a track - but thankfully the racing is split into teams with plenty of drivers to share the burden.

Origially there were 9 teams signed up to race this years 24h race but due to the EXTREME weather the Northern parts of the UK had endured over the previous week - two teams pulled out last minute. JEspares and last years winners HPI Racing were the unfortunate stuck-in-snow warriors.

Never the less - 7 teams remained, the same as the previous years event, so plenty of action was guarenteed.

Team Name	Car
Team Associated	Associated B44
Team Schumacher	CAT SX
Team Shambles	XFactory X6
Team Ross-Mods	Associated B4
Tekin-Rango	Durango 410R
York-A	Yokomo BMAX
York-B	Associated B44

(Above) The track is the usual YORK fare - lots of polished wooden floor and some interesting jumps and bumps. There was nothing too taxing for the drivers to contend with but there's enough of a challenge to make things interesting.

The race runs from 2pm Saturday to 2pm Sunday. Drivers started to turn up around 9am and after a few track modifications the practice got underway at 11:30am to allow plenty of time to shake the newly prepared cars down before the serious stuff began.

Jimmy oOple and Stu Evans, the CORE oOple reporting team were racing for Rossendale Models - forgoeing the expense and hassle of creating an 'oOple' team. Rossendale models are mostly known for 1/5th scale stuff - and the guys race 5th off road buggies usually. We love Rossendale Models so check them out at www.rossmod.co.uk

Teams could choose any electric buggy - so 2WD and 4WD choice was open for the teams to decide. only two out of the seven teams chose to run a 2WD buggy however. Whilst the 2WD's would probably be easier on the batteries and less moving parts to go wrong - there is always an advantage to 4WD on the slippy York floors.

First corner - lap one. Schumacher, Associated and York-B battle it out.

Racing got underway bang on 2pm - the cars were lined up randomly on the main straight and shot off in fine style - almost immediately causing a big pile-up from which the Associated B44 of the Team Associated team emerged in the lead.

5 Laps in and Team Associated held their lead in front of Team Schumacher and York-A. Team Rossendale Models were lagging in last position at this point.

20 minutes in and the top three had stayed the same - Associated, Schumacher and York-A, all on 53 laps. Tekin-Rango were falling back on the leaders a little with 51 laps at the 20 minute mark.

Team Schumacher took over the lead by the half hour mark - two battery stops from Team Associated dropped them off the lead while the Schumacher boys kept going from just one battery stop. Coming around to start another lap the Team Associated car stopped for no apparent reason and a couple of minutes were lost in the mayhem - dropping the team to 4th overall and promoting York-A into second ahead of Tekin-Rango in third.

Team Associated swapped drivers early - 8th scale hero Tony Truman from TTRC-Live being replaced by the 8th-hero Dave Crompton - but Dave didn't have much luck either as the car again cut out mysteriously shortly into his stint. The car puked its guts out a little later when their velcro'd cells spat out in a crash - then it was a 9 minute change of speed controller up next and the Associated boys weren't happy when a crash at the end of the straight by another team collected the AE boys and wiped a corner off - oops!

Team Schumacher driver Chris 'LRP' Doughty took his 8th scale anger out on the SX - stuck on a track marker Dough-man hammer the throttle and stripped the spur gear.

Team Shambles were punishing their X6 but after 4 hours still hadn't managed to break it - though had now dropped to last position.

Ross-Mods team came from a 7-lap deficit at the bottom of the table after 2 hours - but had passed Shambles for 6th after 3 hours. 5 minutes into the fourth hour however the differential on their Associated B4 'gave up' and put them back into last position.

4 Hours in:

4 hours into the race - Team Schumacher lead Team Associated by 22 laps - with TekinRango 51 laps down in third.

Team Associated drivers were (Top left to right) Steve Lawson, Karl Jackson, Paul Bradby, Dave Crompton. (Bottom row) Neil Cragg, Ben Jemison and Tony 'TTRC' Truman.

The AE boys were running Paul Bradbys standard B44 buggy - the only modification the guys performed was to use velcro to hole the cells in place - for lightning quick changes.

The guys swapped to an older version of their Nosram ESC after problems early on - and were using the slowest motor they could muster up between them, a Nosram 9.5.


	The guys change ESC after early problems


Race control	Chris from Team RossMod - with his 'Special boy' hat


The track was supposed to be like this - it is sort of, if you squint.	Team Associateds Ben Jem

Five and a half hours into the racing and Team Associated who'd been catching up for a while were suddenly right up on Team Schumacher. The Schumacher team felt the pressure and managed to maintain a gap of around 1 lap for a while but their lead was slowly ebbing away. 10 minutes later the Associted team finally overtook on the track for the lead.

'Some business went on' with Team Schumachers motor and they lost time changing for a faster 8.5 (from the 10.5 knackered one) - as soon as the car was put down however the spur stripped and everyone cried. More time lost as Schumacher slipped to 18laps behind the Team Associated guys.

TTRC Live is here at the York EBOR24 race, broadcasting the racing live on the internets like some sort of modern day publishing hero.

The 'TT' in TTRC stands for Tony Truman, the genius and race commentating mastermind behind this reportage phenomenan. Tony grew up suckling upon the teet of 10th electric off road racing, though these days he's more at home among his 8th scale off road bretheren - Still, Tony appears now and then for 10th electric races and promises a renewed interest and focus on the smaller silent brothers he's used to in 2011. We managed to kidnap TT away from his important TTRCLIVE duties to get a few questions in:

Tony, thanks for attending this race and covering it - we're using your website for results since the wifi here seems to be broken. How long have you been doing the TTRC stuff, and why?
TT. Well i think the UK needed something like this to take it to the next level and i thought it would be something i would enjoy. We have been up and running for 6months now and have over 15,000 hits on the site.

Tony Truman packs up his gear after some hard work

What are your plans for TTRC Live, do you have any plans to get bigger / cover more events?
TT. Yes next year i plan to go bigger and better. I think now i have all the setup sorted the sky is the limit. I plan to to cover all the B.R.C.A offroad events 1/8th rallyX and 1/10th electric. Then all big events and events im invited to inbetween.

What sort of money have you put into the venture - has it paid for itself?
TT. At the moment im scared to work out how much money i have put into this, but hopefully the plans i have for the future can help me to become bigger and better.

You've recently defected to 8th off road racing - why? Do you prefer the racing?
TT. As i race with my dad it gets him alot more involved with pit stops etc, plus i have raced 10th for 11years so i just fancied trying something else.

What's the best race you've covered, and why?
TT. proberly the 1/8th euros. The website was at its basic early stages but still we had over 600 viewers watching the main final.

Your girlfriend seems to help out a lot with TTRC Live - do you pay her?
TT.no no, she does it because she loves me :)

9 Hours in and Team Associated slowly built their lead over the once-leaders Team Schumacher. Tekin-Rango slowly dropped off the lead - down by 121 laps by this point, but still in with a chance.

York-A had some problems with their Yokomo BMax - a stripped crowngear in the rear gearbox cost them dearly and the replacement wasn't sounding too healthy.

Team Tekin-Rango consists of the Tekin-powered Durango guys as the name may suggest. The team are using the top of the range RS PRO speed controller from Tekin in their DEX410R buggy.

(Top row) Richard (PK) Coates, Paul Crawford, Phil Campbell, Peter (Timmy) Watson, (Bottom row)Jim Dixon, Damian Whittle, Graham North, Shane Foot.

The 410R the team are using is brand new built specifically for this race and was prepared by Jim Dixon & Graham North. The DEX410 isn't the easiest buggy in the world to change the cells on but the team came up with an interesting way to quickly change cells by modifying the side pod to allow it to swing outwards, so removing the slipper assembly wasn't required.


Pivoting side pod is held in place with a big clip


The 410R shock towers have the 'extra' holes removed to reduce the chance of breakage.	A rough hole was chisled from the chassis plate as a last minite move to reduce heat buildup during the racing.

Tekin-Rango would like to thank thier supporters: Tekin, Team Durango, Atomic Carbon, Answer-RC. Nor-Tech Racing, RossMod, MBModels

Stu Evans from the oOple / RossMod team got the idea of 'doing a line' of sugary sweeties - thinking it might aide his performance on the track.

It didn't work out too well for the puzzled northern monkey and after a swift kicking from random passers by he was taken away to be pumped-out.

A slippery slope of sugar-nonsense


Stu half way thru his line of glucose misery	These lads took to kicking the smacked up dancer - good job on them.

Hmmmmm - so apparently leaving my camera connected via USB to the computer drains it like mad.

By half race distance - Team Associated were pulling a nice little lead over the Schumacher team who were 46 laps down by 2am. They were the lucky ones however as the promising TekinRango team were ever further from the top spot as they sat in third but a frightening 156 laps down on the leaders.

Standings after 12 hours completed

Pos	TEAM	LAPS
1	Team Associated	1991
2	Team Schumacher	-46
3	Tekin-Rango	-156
4	York B	-234
5	York A	-310
6	Team Ross Mods	-463
7	Team Shambles	-675


The Schumacher boys came in with a broken ball cup but failed to notice the broken suspension arm and were quickly back to the pits for another fixing sesh.

ZombieDamo has a little nappypoos, bless his undead self.

5 Minutes - that's all it takes for people to be influenced by oOple to the point they'll try anything just for KICKS! Dont try this at home kiddies.

Shane of the foot saw what he believed to be real sweetie-snorting epic - (see above) thought it was clearly faked. That didn't stop the northern rooney-esque hero however - and he swiftly consumed several lines of sherbert via his nasal passage.


Shane hoovers up like a modern-day cyclonic dancer	Shane emits surprise at the peppery nasal kicking he received

This is what happens when you are bored and tired.

We've not had many photos of cars so here's a few:


York A's Yokomo BMAX	Team Schumacher


Team Shambles XFactory car	Team RossMods

15 hours in and the Associated chaps were still pushing hard - and still slowly widening the gap back too the Schumacher lads. Simon Moss from Team Schumacher claims they're losing out to the Associated on battery changes - it seems the velcro idea is a good one after all.

5am & no sleep - but quick calculations (which could be completely wrong) say that if everyone stopped racing NOW - it would take Team Shambles over 7 hours to catch up to Team Associated. Oh dear.

York-A were the first and only team to drop out during the 24 hour marathon after some electrical problems. The guys were running the Yokomo BMAX


The car parades its misserable guts	...And in better times, York A


A crow fell asleep on Northys Impreza - and froze in place to his windscreen. The only thing Graham could find to remove it was a cheese grater.	Mike Cockerill went to sleep for 23 hours.

The YORK-A team had problems earlier in the race with a motor and gearbox issues on their Yokomo BMAX buggy - and the car wasn't sounding too healthy in the closing stages of the race. A blown speedcontroller however was the final straw and despite running in a respectable 5th overall they decided to retire.

The only team capable of catching the now defunct York-A team was the 2WD weilding RossMods team who were down by over 200 laps but with enough time left in the race to pull the gap back and move into 5th place. Without any major mishaps the RossMods team moved into 5th with around an hour and a quarter to go.

1 Hour to go:

With 1 hour to go there wasn't going to be any more position changes - theoretically however the Schumacher team could pass Team Associated if the latter broke - Team Schumacher could make up the deficit in laps in 59 minutes according to our rough calculations. But things didn't go that way and instead it was Team Schumacher that looked to have terminal failure.
The guys couldn't diagnose the problem but after 15 minutes head scratching and testing they finally tracked it down to a broken wire going to the receiver. 3500 laps of banging about can take its toll.


Simon Moss attempts to diagnose the issue	Team Schumacher felt betrayed by a bit of wire.


Stu Evans went out in the cold for 7 minutes	Graham North massages the head

Team Schumacher dropped back because of the electrical problems - finishing 2nd, 138 laps down on Team Associated

From what we could devise, it was the Team Tekin-Rango guys who had the least breakages on the car - with just a servo saver breaking over the 24 hours.

Team Associated looked to have the fastest pit stops - and RossMods the slowest, with regular receiver swaps to allow 2 different handsets to be used.


Team Tekin-Rango were exhausted but happy	Their Durango DEX410R chassis, coated in melted carpet, or some strange scum of a sort.

Team RossMod went through the 24 hour race with minimal fuss - a gearbox change and broken driveshaft being the hilights. 5 minutes before the end of the race however another driveshaft broke and the team battled hard to get the car up and running to cross the line and finish the race still on the track. A butchered X6 later and the teams B4 was back up and running till the end.

Team RossMod - Rossendale Models, had a few failures on their Associated B4 but manage to battle through and finish a healthy 5th overall - the highest placed 2WD buggy. The guys were so confident in their abilities that they kept using the thumb scews to secure the cells - time consuming as that was.

Time wound out with all the remaining 6 teams on the track and racing - Team Associated taking the overall win ahead of Schumacher and Tekin-Rango. Congratulations to the winners.

Standings after 24 hours

Pos	TEAM	LAPS
1	Team Associated	3875/23h59m 49.98
2	Team Schumacher	-138/ 24h 11.78
3	Tekin-Rango	-327/ 24h 13.21
4	York B	-448/ 24h 21.44
5	Team Ross Mods	-889/ 24h 6.37
6	York A	-1017/ 20h54m 57.03
7	Team Shambles	-1256/ 24h 24.91

Team Associated took the victory with their team of superstar drivers. (Karl Jackson missing from this photo)


The B44.1 of Paul Bradbys team	A few screws fell out during the 24 hour race