Seven drivers competed in our two hundred and fifty-second official FRC event, this one for our Rally, Slot.It Challenge (Group C) and Formula 1 classes. Aside from regulars Ramesh, Steve and myself, it was great having Shane attend and compete for the first time in five years, his last time being way back on June 16th, 2013! We also welcomed past slot car enthusiast and racer Richard to his first experience of digital competition and it was immediately clear that he was an old hand at slot racing. Alex and Peter completed the driver line up, taking part in the rally stages.
The rally competition had everyone's attention as all seven drivers took their turns at the 5-lap stages. It takes some concentration to push a magnet-less car around five laps of FRC and yet go as fast as possible without de-slotting. Unfortunately for a few drivers (myself included), this was not possible for all three stages and highlighted those who were able to accomplish this. Both the Slot.It and F1 races had close dices, the two fastest qualifiers having set almost identical times, but once any car got a lead over its immediate competitor - usually because of an accident - there were just not enough laps left in the 20-lap races to make back sufficient ground to challenge for the position previously held.
The results
The rally competitors:
Slot.It Challenge starting grid. Three Nissan R89Cs, a Nissan Nissan R90CK and a Toyota 88C:
Formula 1 starting grid. Three McLarens and a Renault:
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Class grouping C: Modified Production (MP), Restricted GT (RGT), Restricted LMP (RLMP).
Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest times by driver and class for 2018 to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated fastest times for 2018.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon