Invicta Informant

The authorities do not seem to truly appreciate how much a football club means to their local community. It is something you cannot put a price on. Just look at the story of AFC Wimbledon. I do hope Southend United gets some stable ownership, though it would not surprise me if they have to go through what Bury did (they and their home ground are now owned by their supporters' society).

Bletchinghurst from the Erith MRS is due to attend.

This weekend there is IndyCar from Toronto, NASCAR from New Hampshire, Formula E from Rome, and the Goodwood Festival of Speed (which actually started on 13th).

This weekend there is WEC from Monza, IMSA from Mosport Park, Ontario, DTM from the Norising in Nuremberg, Australian Supercars from Townsville, Queensland, and NASCAR from Atlanta.

I went on Saturday and I had a enjoyable day out, with two round trips on the railway. From my perspective, it was nice to meet and chat to some acquaintances that I have not seen for a few months. The layouts and traders were mostly based in one of the locomotive workshops at Sheffield Park and in the carriage workshop at Horsted Keynes, areas not normally opened to the public. Layout wise at Sheffield Park there was just the OO Live Steam Club and a rather good N gauge layout Upperton from the Eastbourne club. Traders there included Invicta Model Rail, David Wills, Bachmann, Aspire Gifts & Models, Richard Panes Spares, and ModelU in the Bluebell Railway's Shop on the platform. At Horsted Keynes, the traders were Barry Jones, A&N Rail Models, Andy Lynch, Colin Penn, Carriage & Wagon Models, Railroad Trading, 75D Railway Books, The Wagon Yard, On the Rails, and Heritage In Motion. Layout wise, there was the usual contingent from the West Sussex N Gauge Society, N gauge Crumbling Edge (by one of my fellow Erith MRS members), two layouts which won the trophies at my club's show back in January, Ballyconnell Road (Irish 3mm scale) and Somewhere in France (WW1-themed OO9), Plumpton Green (as pictured), and other small layouts in OO, TT and N. It would not surprise me if the Bluebell might have had difficulties with getting different layouts to attend, had a few late drop outs, or they might not have known until recently what space they had to play with the workshops.

Was this the one ran by the Chatham & District MRC? The Chatham Show that comes to my mind are the ones at Fort Pitt Grammar School ran by the Medway Model Show Group. The last time the Chatham & District MRC organised a show was, I believe, in 2018. I remember going to their shows in 2015 and 2016 where they took place in the Medway Park Leisure Centre in Gillingham. They were big and damn good shows, but really warm inside the halls, as they took place in early June.

This weekend there is IndyCar from Mid-Ohio, NASCAR with a street race in Chicago, and the 24 Hours of Spa (which is also a round of both the GT World Challenge Endurance Cup and the Intercontinental GT Challenge).

I believe a Erith MRS club member is taking one of his layouts, Crumbling Edge, to the show.

The World Cup of Darts was won by Wales (Gerwyn Price & Jonny Clayton) who beat Scotland (Peter Wright & Gary Anderson) 10 legs to 2 in the final. The defending champions Australia lost in the quarter finals to Belgium 8-7, while the No. 1 seed England also lost in the quarter finals to Germany 8-3. The next TV tournament is the 'World Series' Poland Darts Masters in Warsaw on 7th & 8th July on ITV4. The next ranked TV major is the World Matchplay at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, running from 15th to 23rd July on Sky Sports.

This weekend there is the Safari Rally round of the WRC from Kenya, DTM from Zandvoort, IMSA from Watkins Glen, NASCAR from Nashville, Formula E from Portland, Oregon, and MotoGP from Assen.

This weekend there is IndyCar from Road America, Wisconsin, BTCC from Oulton Park, British GT from Snetterton, Australian Supercars from Darwin, and MotoGP from Sachsenring, Germany.

Quest, which is part of the Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio, did have some coverage of the race in the wee small hours, but was the same as that on Eurosport.

I could not take my eyes off Le Mans this year. Just as you thought it was calming down, something happened to one of the contenders in one of the classes. The modified NASCAR raced by Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson, and Mike Rockenfeller finished 39th. 40 out of the 62 starters finished or were classified. And is it just me, but I thought Eurosport's normally great coverage was dire this year. They kept cutting away to features/interviews during the race and cutting to ad breaks when something exciting was happening (about as bad as ITV's F1 coverage from back in the day).

It is based on the lowest combined ranking of the top two players from each nation, and many of them don't have one, let alone two, players active on the PDC Pro Tour. For example, Smith and Cross, representing England are 1st and 5th respectively in the PDC Order of Merit, while the Australian pair, Heta and Whitlock, are ranked 15th and 40th respectively.

Michael van Gerwen won the the 'World Series' US Darts Masters, beating Canadian Jeff Smith 8-0 in the final. Both will be in action for the World Cup of Darts next week. Australia (Damon Heta & Simon Whitlock) are the defending champions, but will have to start in the group stage. England (Michael Smith & Rob Cross), Netherlands (Michael van Gerwen & Danny Noppert), Wales (Gerwyn Price & Jonny Clayton), and Scotland (Peter Wright & Gary Anderson) will enter at the second round, where they will be joined by the group stage winners, and it becomes a straight knock-out tournament. Group Stage Draw: Group A: (5) Belgium, Finland, China Group B: (6) Germany, Hong Kong, Japan Group C: (7) Australia, Guyana, Gibraltar Group D: (8) Northern Ireland, France, Ukraine Group E: (9) Republic of Ireland, Thailand, Croatia Group F: (10) Austria, Denmark, USA Group G: (11) Poland, Portugal, Lithuania Group H: (12) Canada, India, Hungary Group I: (13) Czech Republic, Singapore, Philippines Group J: (14) Spain, South Africa, Iceland Group K: (15) Latvia, New Zealand, Bahrain Group L: (16) Switzerland, Italy, Sweden

Ferrari lock out the front row in qualifying. In the other classes, the No. 48 IDEC Sport took LMP2 Pole, while in LMGTE AM the sole Corvette, No. 33, took that class pole. Also MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, took a class victory in a 'Road to Le Mans' support race today (Friday), and he hopes to make his debut in the 24 hour race proper next year. Next year's WEC grid will just feature two classes, Hypercars and LMGT3s, though LMP2s may still feature at Le Mans and in the IMSA series in North America.

Aside from the Le Mans 24 Hours, this weekend there is NASCAR from Sonoma, California, and MotoGP from Mugello. There has been one nasty accident already in practice for Le Mans. Both drivers are okay and the teams are pretty hopeful of getting their entries fixed up for practice today (Thursday), though they both needed replacement chassis. The No. 13 LMP2 car must serve a three minute stop-and-go penalty within four laps of the start of the race, as the bronze-rated driver failed to slow down sufficiently before impact.

More watchable than Formula One

Eurosport have the coverage (in the UK at least) and they shall be covering not only all of the race, but free practice and qualifying on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Saturday morning warm-up. There should be more manufacturers joining next year, with Alpine, BMW, Lamborghini, Isotta Fraschini, and possibly De Tomaso. Bear in mind there is already Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, Cadillac, Glickenhaus, and Vanwall. Top level sportscar racing looks in a much healthy state than it did a few years ago with the demise of LMP1. Talking of celebrity, the official starter of this year's Le Mans is NBA star LeBron James. No idea why (his team, the LA Lakers, are not in the NBA Finals). He does not have any connection to motorsport as far as I know. Previous official starters have included Brad Pitt, Rafael Nadal, Georges Pompidou, and Steve McQueen. It should really go to someone like Tom Kristensen or Jacky Ickx.

This weekend there is WRC from Sardinia, Italy, IndyCar from Detroit, BTCC from Thruxton, NASCAR from St. Louis, and Formula E from Jakarta. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is next weekend, but Scrutineering starts tomorrow (Friday 2nd) in the town itself. There are two Free Practice sessions and Qualifying on Wednesday 7th, and two more Free Practice session and Hyperpole on Thursday 8th.

That is what I first feared might have happened. I know of accidents in the past in both IndyCar and NASCAR where cars have got airborne and crashed into the catch-fencing or debris from an accident ending up the grandstands, resulting in spectators being injured or even killed.

Having watched the Indy 500, thank goodness that nobody was the hurt, and the only damage done by that tyre that cleared the grandstands was cosmetic to someone's car in a parking lot. Kyle Kirkwood sustained a 80g impact and later thanked both the safety crew and medical team.

The Premier League finally concluded on the 25th May. Though Gerwyn Price topped the regular season table, he was defeated in the Play-Off Final by 3rd place Michael van Gerwen 11-5. The next tournament is the 'World Series' US Darts Masters at Madison Square Gardens on 2nd & 3rd June, coverage on ITV4. After that there is the expanded World Cup of Darts, a pairs tournament, in Frankfurt on 15th-18th June, coverage on Sky Sports. 40 nations will now be participating - Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Ukraine, USA, and Wales.

This weekend there is British GT from Donington Park, NASCAR from Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Indy 500.

This weekend there is BTCC from Snetterton, Australian Supercars from Symmons Plains, Tasmania, and the Nürburgring 24 Hours.