Eight drivers were on hand to compete in our Ferrari Team Challenge (FTC) and Rally Car (RC) classes, amongst them FRC first-timer Meagan. FTC is unique amongst FRC classes in that drivers are grouped into three teams and the focus is on the team rather than the individual driver. Its the only class where we see drivers helping and encouraging others (other than when we do multi-driver endurance events) and its good to see that kind of camaraderie amongst what would normally be rivals. We also hosted out second Rally Car stages event which proved as interesting and as much fun as ever.
For FTC we did the normal dice rolling to select cars for qualifying, however we added a second dice roll to randomly select chassis as opposed to the bodies which are allocated based on team qualifying results. In the future we plan to either balance the magnets on the cars as we've done or the Porsches or rotate the chassis when preparing the cars for the upcoming event. Nonetheless, qualifying resulted in the following teams:
- Scuderia Giallo (Yellow - car nos 1 and 2) - Steve and Luke
- Scuderia Blu (Blue - car nos 3 and 4) - Gordon, Kevin and Marcus
- Scuderia Rosso (Red - car nos 5 and 6) - Boo, Mike and Meagan
Mike kicked off the rallying, being the first driver to hit the stages, followed one after another by the other five drivers who competed. As expected with magnet-less driving, going sideways was the rule rather than the exception. Once again the pace was set by Steve in his Citroen C4, although he never managed to match his previous event's best time of 51.189 sec. Luke's Impreza was blisteringly quick even managing sub-60 sec stage times when the car would not register a lap, causing him to complete six laps instead of the file-lap stage length. In the first stage he actually did more than six laps because of this problem. I managed to solve my Subaru's similar problem and improve its times a bit through some mods to the car since the last outing, but it could not compete with the fastest. Boo had some steady runs but several de-slots kept him back while first-time rally competitors Mike and grandson Marcus did very well, controlling their cars and keeping in the slot through focused driving.
We had a very enjoyable night of racing and rallying and although we finished before midnight, Luke, Steve and I limed on in the driveway, discussing the event and other FRC-related matters till after 1:00 AM.
New lap record
- Ferrari Team Challenge - 6.614 sec (Steve, Scalextric Ferrari F430)
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Porsche Cup - 6 races @ 30 laps, Historic Saloon - 3 races @ 30 laps. Don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Also of interest are the updated class average qualifying times.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon