After a month of no racing, our special Saturday event was a refreshing return to our favourite hobby. Eight drivers turned up, amongst which was a very special contender doing his first ever FRC event - the man who started it all for FRC, O'Brie! Yes, over three years after blowing my mind with his digital track and cars and then building the FRC track table, O'Brie finally competed in a full FRC race event and he was no slouch either. Far from it. He fielded a slew of cars (even lent a few for others to drive) that were on par with some of the quickest cars in their respective FRC classes. But not only were his cars competitive, his driving was quick and controlled enough to result in two wins, a second and two thirds out of the six races run for the event, not what I would have expected after not having raced for so long.
Scheduled races were three 30-lappers each for Historic Saloon, Vintage Sports and Slot.It Challenge and one 15-minute race each for American Muscle, F1 and LMP. With all the pre-race testing, qualifying and setting of controllers, it turned out that we raced one 30-lap race for each class except American Muscle which was run as a 10-minute race. Unfortunately this meant that in some classes the seventh and eighth-placed qualifiers ended up sitting out the class (but they did marshal!).
In the end there was just a single point separating the Champion Driver of the Event from the second-placed position and the persons in question brought back fond memories of racing battles waged way back on the slot tracks of the '60s. The event ran from testing and practice when the track opened around 1:00 PM till we had our final drink just before 9:00 PM - eight hours of stress-relieving fun and friendly competition.
We seem assured in a new regular racer at FRC, as nothing could wipe the smile off O'Brie's face on Saturday.
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: To be announced. Don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars!
See you on the circuit...
Gordon