After two previous failed attempts, we finally got to race our Restricted GT, Slot.It Challenge and F1 cars on Carnival Thursday. Seven drivers turned up for the event, the races of which got underway after 9:00 PM, the result of a bit more practice and testing than normal.
Our special guest driver Peter had arrived in from Nigeria the Monday before and brought along some interesting old but upgraded and chipped Scalextric cars which we spent some time driving. They were surprisingly fast too. Unfortunately even the Greg Myers-modified F1 chips in two of them only lasted a limited time before blowing, a testament to the specially-built and very fast "old-time" 16D motors on board.
I adjusted the qualifying results report to show each car's difference in time from the car ahead as well as the difference from the pole qualifier and this showed the seven RGT cars being separated by 1.566 sec, the five SC cars by .780 sec and the six F1 cars by .678 sec! This translated to some very competitive running once the racing started. In what may have been a surprise to many present, Aaron's promise of success began to show when he out-qualified everyone in F1 to grab his first ever FRC pole and more was to come from him in the races.
The RGT races were dominated by my Aston Martin DBR9 while Arden, driving Luke's Honda NSX lead the rest. Slot.It Challenge was a fight between my Toyota 88C and Boo's Sauber Mercedes with Luke's Nissan R390 running ahead of the others. In F1, Aaron fulfilled his promise by winning two of the three races to clinch the class championship, with Luke and Arden challenging for second.
Between Aaron's success and Arden's fine results, I believe that we can clearly upgrade both these drivers from their digital racing "novice" status to definitely being a threat to everyone, not to be taken lightly in the future.
Despite starting late, it was a fine event with lots of action and fun enjoyed by all present. After a bit of the usual after-racing "old talk", we eventually closed shop shortly after midnight.
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Lambo Series - 6 races @ 30 laps, Vintage Sports - 3 races @ 30 laps (270 total laps 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
