The afternoon started off looking like rain would spoil our inaugural Ferrari Team Challenge event. As usual, O'Brie dropped in early to help me set things up but couldn't stay as he was feeling a bit under the weather. Luckily, the afternoon rain stopped and never prevented us from having what turned into a really enjoyable evening of racing. Besides the planned six FTC races we also had three Modified Production races on the card.
Before leaving, O'Brie joined me in testing the Ferraris for the first time and it was immediately apparent that with the stock 18,000 RPM motors and wide Maxxtrac silicone tyres, the cars could do most of the lap flat out - not a good thing for exciting racing. I quickly called Luke who hadn't left home and asked him to bring the stock rubber tyres which we switched to, making the cars a little more challenging to drive. We decided at that point that we would change the motors to ones with a bit more power and reinstall the silicones for the next event.
Nine drivers turned up but Kyle had to leave before the racing began, although he did do some driving while present. The eight remaining qualified the FTC cars in two groups of four, choosing cars by roll of a dice, with the fastest six running the first race and the usual cycling of the last two drivers. Once the top six were established, the cars they would race and teams they would belong to were again decided by the rolling of a dice, leaving everything completely up to chance and therefore as fair as possible. The resulting teams were (in Italian, of course):
- Scuderia Blu (Blue) - Luke and Alex
- Scuderia Giallo (Yellow) - Steve and I
- Scuderia Rosso (Red) - Paul and Arden
Luke and Alex had proven they meant business by qualifying first and second, respectively, making it a Scuderia Blu front row for the first race. Paul took third for Scuderia Rosso while I was fourth for Scuderia Giallo. Arden (Scuderia Rosso) and Steve (Scuderia Giallo) completed the grid and the action began. Once the lights went green it was clear that racing would be very close and high finishing places would go to those who were able to keep up the pace without deslotting.
As the races progressed, Kerwin and Aaron would drive for both Scuderia Blu and Scuderia Rosso. In the end it was not entirely clear which was the winning team without having the computer run the numbers, but everyone agreed that it was a whole lot of fun. One interesting apect was the willingness of team members to help each other out on deslots, actually distracting themselves to reslot a team member whose car was deslotteed nearby. The team concept seems to have been very successful and can only get better as its refined.
Five MP cars took to the track after the last FTC race, however Arden had to withdraw when the Mini I lent him blew its F1 chip, leaving just four to run the three races. These races were quite close too and reminiscent of the fast classes like American Muscle where speed is concerned (or maybe it was the contrast between them and the relatively slow FTC cars that gave this impression).
Without a doubt though, the stars of the event were the FTC races and they produced a range of ways of looking at the results. In the end though, the important result was the overall team results - the champion team of the event.
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Porsche Cup - 6 races @ 30 laps, Historic Saloon - 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
The only suggestion/point I would still like to make with this FTC class is, if there are more than 6 racers and with this event being a team effort... If you look at the Teams/Champs results with the extra drivers number 7 & 8 on the Blue Team as well as the Red Team, it looks kind of strange in black and white. 
" of mines with 9 racers by colour teams: 
in this case) we have to realize that the 
hehehehe 
Do you have any plans for FRC'S 100th. Racing Event