UMCC Covid-19 Update, Winter Series 2020/2021

With all the current government restrictions in place trying to stem this Covid 19 Pandemic, it is with MUCH disappointment that I have to inform you that we have been in contact with Wellington College who has informed us that The Education Department at Stormont have informed all schools that there is to be no third parties permitted within any school until further notice.

As I said unfortunately that means our Indoor Season at Wellington College will not start as normal in September, the committee are trying to explore alternative premises but with amount of equipment required to build a carpet based track, logistically this is proving difficult but we will continue to consider an alternative venue should one become available.

We remain in contact with the School and owners and any review of the current government policy will be conveyed to our members. To that end we hope to extend the outdoor season beyond the schedule round on 5th September, so hopefully with some good luck with the weather we can continue to enjoy the fantastic track at Ballymoney.

Marty Kenny

Club Secretary

The road back to racing….

The Ulster Model Car Club is pleased to announce the return to racing at our Ballymoney outdoor facility, albeit in a much reduced number of rounds.

Round 1 25th July

Round 2 8th August

Round3 22nd August

Round 4 5th Sept

All drivers will be expected to adhere to all current COVID-19 regulations in place on the date of the event. It will be the drivers own responsibility to bring their hand sanitizer and if they wish gloves ( unless these become mandatory by the government) . All drivers will be expected to wear a mask / face covering whilst on the rostrum either at practice or during racing . Booking in can be done through myrcm and payments on the day by contactless card payment only.

The committee is trying it’s best to get our members back racing and appreciate your patience and understanding at this difficult time for us all but hopefully with common sense we can get back to enjoying a competitive days racing with good friends.

Ulster Model Car Club Covid-19 update 20/05/20

Ulster Model Car Club Covid-19 update 20/05/20 Update1

Following on from the recent update from the N.I executive, we the UMCC are now in a position to offer limited access to our outdoor facilities for members to practice.

We will be able to offer practice days on selected dates abiding by the following rules.

Maximum 6 people per day, although if interest is sufficient, we may be able to split this into morning/afternoon sessions or add extra dates where necessary.

Maximum of 4 people allowed on the rostrum at any one time keeping the mandated 2m apart.

Gloves, masks and hand sanitiser and strict social distancing should be used by all members where applicable, there are several houses overlooking the track, so it is important we follow the current rules.

A small fee may be payable per day to cover the cost of maintenance and payable before the day via PayPal, we do not envisage this being more than a few pounds.

Dates:

30th May - Track work and maintenance.

6th June - Practice one

20th June - Practice two

4th July - Practice three

18th June - Practice four.

I will create a Facebook event for each round on the Monday before, spaces will be on a first come first served bases, If there is sufficient interest we will run extra dates in between where possible, but please remember our track facilities are located within the grounds of a closed leisure centre so certain criteria will need to be met.

Thanks

UMCC committee.

Ulster Model Car Club - Outdoor Summer Series dates

For 2020, the Ulster Model Car Club outdoor summer series will again be held at our superb purpose built facility in Ballymoney, a fast, technical and fun track. Please see our outdoor summer series dates below, Thank you to Alan and the rest of the committee for getting these together. I look forward to seeing you all on track for some good racing and even better BBQ’s.



2019 EWS International - UMCC on Tour

The 2019 edition of the EWS International took place last weekend, an annual 3 day event ran by the same team as the EWS Winter Series and if you have not already been, its definitely one of the best races of the year. A number of our members make the trip across every year to compete and this year, Alan, Andrew, Graham, Scott and Richard headed across.

A very competitive field in both classes along with the very high grip and a different tyre to what we run at home makes for a tough event, but in the end we all came home with reasonable results, but as always there was room for improvement.

Alan Bickerstaff - 15th Modified

Andrew Smith 13th Stock

Graham Kenny 15th Stock

Scott Kenny 21st Stock

Richard Nelson 45th Stock

You can read the Full race report on RedRC

:https://www.redrc.net/2019/12/volker-donath-win-at-ews-international/?fbclid=IwAR1YdsjS3KDj9JGEvuOhDQ8cFuR1z0DBlCRBXJwdo38gKlgqRvPDt7YUW8g

Prize Giving

We took the opportunity at our Annual Schools cup to award the trophies from our 2019 Outdoor Summer Series. Well done to all our championship winners and a thank you to everyone for supporting the outdoor series. Best of luck with your 2019/20 Indoor championship campaigns.

Pro Touring

1st - Mark Gilliland (Awesomatix)

2nd - Alan Bickerstaff (Associated)

3rd - Peter Philips (Xray)

Stock Touring

1st - Graham Kenny (Xray)

2nd - Andrew Smith (Associated)

3rd - Scott Kenny (Awesomatix)

Tamiya Mini

1st - Martin Kenny (MO7)

2nd - Nigel Smith (MO5)

3rd - Jim Rowley (MO5)

Unfortunately due to Nigel being sick and Martin on yet another holiday we have had to use a few much younger “stand ins” :)

AGM Updates, changes and general chat

On Saturday we held our Annual General Meeting and i thought i would write up a brief summary to keep those who couldn’t make it up to date with any updates,changes and general chat. I will try and keep this short and sweet, if you have any questions, come and speak to us track side.

UMCC Committee for 2019/2020 - Lee Cutler unfortunately will be stepping off the committee for the foreseeable future due to personal commitments. I would like to thank Lee on behalf of all members for his years of hard work bringing the club forward, getting kids and schools involved in the sport. The role of chairman will be filled by Jim Rowley, with Martin Kenny remaining as secretary and Graham Kenny moving up to treasurer. This year we have also welcomed Peter Philips onto the committee as an On-road coordinator to help with general tasks. Peter is a very experienced racer, and we are happy to have him on board.

No proposals were received for the popular Tamiya mini class, however up for discussion was the idea to move to a control tyre for the indoor series to fall inline with the outdoor series. Throughout the day we provided drivers with a set of Ride slicks to test and most agreed they provided plenty of grip. The issue was raised of the cost to change tyre, so we have agree’d a grace period whereby both the Tamiya M-Grips and Ride slicks will be allowed to run alongside each other to allow drivers to use up their existing stock of tyres. The club is currently Sourcing stock of the Ride SC28’s tyres and will update the drivers at Round 1 of our winter series, so stay tuned.

We also discussed and agreed to move from our Sweep additive to the MR44 V4 additive, this will see us fall closer inline with major UK and European race series and should better help the members who travel overseas to compete. As always the club will allow a grace period where both additives will be allowed alongside each other before switching completely yo the MR44 V4. The club is currently ordering stock of this and should be in race control within the next week.

We have discussed the possibility of a race format change to 4 rounds of qualifying and 2 finals, both scoring separately towards the championship. This seemed well received by the members unfortunately with current limitations on the new software this will be put on hold until we learn more so stay tuned.

We have removed the 10amp lipo charge limit from our rules document, we will now fall inline with BRCA charge limits which should remove any extra liability the club has regarding charging. You can now charge your lipo battery’s as per BRCA rules which states that it must be as per manufactures guidelines, all of which can be found on the current BRCA battery list, if you need help understanding the limits or where to find them, come and speak to me.

The club have been making a few changes in the run up to this season, many of which you will have seen on our fun day, and some that will become clear over the next year. We can now take contactless payments for anything bought from race control. We have new UMCC banners for our rostrum, a new tuck shop with tea / Coffee making facilities and we will be looking to update our venue, carpet and track system in the coming year.

The biggest change is the move to myrcm race software, please bare with us while we implement and learn this new software as it has many improvements over our old software. One of these being the ability to book in online, and i would encourage all members to do this if you know you will be attending.

Id like to sign off by saying thank you to all members for the continued support, we are a fast growing club and the future looks exciting, if you have any suggestions or idea’s come talk to me on race day!

See you on track