The biggest driver turnout for a long time found their way to FRC for our Kitbash, Vintage Sports GT and Vintage Sports Prototype event. It was nice to welcome Christian, the son of my longtime friend Gerard ("Jiggs") to FRC and to again have Ramesh come by to race. Christian did not race, but spent a short time driving an IROC Ferrari during one of the "board meeting" breaks.
We saw a few new cars appear, which seems to have become a regular thing of late, and these included Ram's lovely Subaru Impreza which was driven by Ian in Kitbash. Because of the large turnout, qualifying for each class was split into two sessions, with the top six driving in the first race for each class and the last two or three race finishers in these races being replaced by the slower qualifiers who did not make the grid for the first races.
There were a couple issues with getting accurate results, one being when I forgot to get a picture of the SSDC results, the second when the results showed some odd placings and two ridiculously low fastest lap times. We did our best over the past week to work out what we believe to be the correct placings and ignored the invalid lap times.
The positive side of the problems mentioned is that we will be enlisting a bit more help from everyone to assist in some of the many things that Steve and I have largely been doing at each event. I'm sure that this will eliminate most these problems, although we can't avoid Powerbase-related issues.
Overall though it was a really nice event and having Ram present once more was great.
Some pics to start things off:
Luke replaced the red and white track borders that were on the right on both sides of the Powerbase with plain black ones to improve the consistency and appearance of that area of the main straight:
We had a big group for the event:
All smiles during practice (except for a distracted O'Brie):
Three GT40s enter FRC's esses :
Drivers focusing while Ram smiles for the camera and Peter checks his phone:
Steve working assiduously on recording results:
One of the all-important board room meetings:
The Results
Kitbash
Kitbash race 1 grid - Ramesh/Peugeot 406, Ian/Subaru Impreza, Luke/Peugeot 406, O'Brie/Peugeot 205; Steve/Corvette Stingray; Peter/Mustang GT350:
Computer Kitbash race 1 results:
Kitbash race 2 grid - Ramesh/Peugeot 406, Ian/Subaru Impreza, Peter/Escort, Gordon/Mini Cooper; Mark/Chevy Lumina; O'Brie/Peugeot 205:
Computer Kitbash race 2 results:
Vintage Sports GT
Vintage Sports GT race 1 grid - Ramesh/De Tomaso Pantera, Gordon/Cobra Daytona, Ian/De Tomaso Pantera, Steve/Porsche 911S, Liam/Corvette L88, O'Brie/Ferrari 250 GTO:
Computer Vintage Sports GT race 1 results:
Vintage Sports GT race 2 grid - Ramesh/De Tomaso Pantera, Gordon/Cobra Daytona, Steve/Porsche 911S, Ian/De Tomaso Pantera, Liam/Corvette L88, Mark/Porsche 911S:
Computer Vintage Sports GT race 2 results:
Sorry, forgot to take a pic of the SSDC results, hence no fastest lap times shown in the second race results below.
Vintage Sports Prototype
Vintage Sports Prototype race 1 grid - Gordon/Ford GT40, Peter/Lola T70 Mk III, Ramesh/Ford GT40, O'Brie/Ford GT40, Ian/Ford GT40, Liam/Ford MkIV:
Big four-car crash at start of race:
Computer Vintage Sports Prototype race 1 results:
Vintage Sports Prototype race 2 grid - Peter/Lola T70 Mk III, Ramesh/Ford GT40, Ian/Ford GT40, Gordon/UOP Shadow, Liam/Ford Mk IV, O'Brie/Ford GT40:
Computer Vintage Sports Prototype race 2 results:
There was some issue with the displayed Powerbase results and this was the best guess we could come up with, first to sixth shown from left to right:
The missing fastest laps below are for two invalid times, one for me at 1.821 sec, the second for Peter at 6.628 sec, so I deleted the times in the FRC database so as not to affect any future statistical analyses:
(How this is computed: https://frcforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=393)
Congratulations to the winners.
Top fifteen Total Championship Points for 2024:
Next event's classes: Rally Car (the usual three stages) plus related competition to be decided upon utilizing the rally cars or IROC cars. No need to bring other cars.
Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest no-magnet times by driver and class to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon