Racing at FRC resumed on Thursday evening after a few weeks of no-gos. Classes run were Lambo Series, Restricted GT and Slot.It Challenge. We saw the return of Alex who had not raced since the curfew was introduced and we also had two newcomers amongst the eight drivers who traded paint, young Matthew and experienced karter but new to slot racing (at FRC anyway) Aaron. Aaron had spent some time on the track at our last FRC practice and test session and got the hang of things quickly, driving a range of cars, doing some very decent times and mastering the lane changes in short order. He was so taken by the experience that within days had ordered his own Slot.It McLaren F1 GTR along with some other bits, all of which happened to arrive just in time for Thursday's event.
Despite having to leave early to get back to work, Aaron participated in a few races and quickly discovered that racing against five other cars for a fixed number of laps was a different kettle of fish to free practice. As with most drivers doing their first FRC races, both he and Matthew spent a fair amount of time out of the slot and running to retrieve their cars.
We decided to use our original one-car-at-a-time, three-lap qualifying method for RGT and SC, while for LS we rolled a dice for grid positions. Because there were eight drivers available for the six LS spots, Kyle and I stepped out for the first LS race, while Aaron rolled the dice to start from pole in his first ever FRC race. I managed to qualify fastest in RGT and SC with my new McLaren MP4 12C doing its first event and my Toyota 88c its second. Luke's Honda NSX was close to my McLaren and proved to be very quick in the races and Steve was also right there with his Audi R8 GT3 both in qualifying and the races. LS was its usual madness, but Boo showed everyone the way, with Luke, Alex and Steve also performing well. In SC, my Toyota 88C proved to be almost in a class of its own with Boo's Sauber leading the rest.
It was a refreshing return to actual racing at FRC and we actually managed to finish all nine races at three minutes to ten. After packing up the track five of us limed and chatted racing in the garage and I didn't get in till around midnight.
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Modified Production, F1, Indy Car (3 races each @ 30 laps - 270 total for all classes). 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