Fairways Racing Complex Forum

RACE REPORT #270 - May 9th 2019 (RC, SC, F1)

A good turnout of ten drivers were present for one of our most popular, challenging and entertaining events - special stage rallying - followed by our Slot.It Challenge and F1 races. It was nice to welcome FRC newcomer Edward B to digital slot car competition and great to see him wet his feet in the rally stages.

Once again the stages proved to be very competitive and unforgiving, as I was reminded of on the second lap of the very first stage when I overdid it heading up towards the Dunlop bridge and crashed the car basically dead-centre of the track and out of easy reach of the marshals. Distracted by this, I added more time to my run when I stopped the car at the end of the fourth lap, thinking the stage was over, then took off again to do the final lap. These mistakes cost me about 30 seconds so its a lesson well learnt. Coming back to the competition, the overall rally times were very close and in the case of second, third and fourth places, the time differences between these three were 0.462 and 0.307. That's over three stages of 5 laps, 15 laps in total!

Slot.It Challenge was a bit crazy, with several automatic lane changes happening throughout the 50 lap race. I personally also found areas where my car would slow then get back up to speed, however this may have been a chip issue in my case. Not surprisingly, the Bhola cars set the pace. F1 however was quite an eye-opener, as Team Bhola arrived with two brand-new cars - a Ferrari and a Mercedes - set up with the same type of body and chassis as my McLaren, but with a different power-plant and boy did they perform! Both cars qualified under 5 seconds, with Luke B setting an all-time fastest ever F1 time. Needless to say, the competition were racing for third place from the start.

During the evening, we took the usual breaks for chatting and refreshments and before we knew it, time had run away from us, preventing a second round of the races. Nonetheless, everyone had a good time and I'm sure all left pondering the changes needed to get their cars to the front or keep them there!

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The results



The rally competitors:












Slot.It Challenge starting grid - Luke B's Nissan R90CK on pole, followed by my Nissan R89C, Ramesh's R89C, Ramesh's Toyota 88C driven by Luke, O'Brie's Mazda 787 and Steve's Toyota 88C driven by Richard R:






Formula 1 starting grid - Luke B puts Team Bhola's beautiful, brand-new Ferrari on pole with a blistering all-time lap record on its debut, Ramesh's similarly-prepared also brand new Mercedes, my McLaren, Steve's McLaren, Richard R driving Steve's Dallara, and O'Brie's McLaren:






Before closing up, we ran some laps in our scratch-built cars. Here Steve's flared-out Escort Mk I leads Ramesh's and Luke B's Mk II and Mk I Escorts. My dark blue Triumph TR4A is mostly hidden behind the shrubbery at the back:





(How this is computed: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=393)

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 2019 to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated fastest times for 2019. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.

See you on the circuit...
Gordon

Great racing , lots of action , i was so sorry Gordon had some hard luck in the rally and slot it but we still did enjoy the races , the rally was very close and i am very happy that O Brie got his rally car up to speed.thanks to all who showed up see you all at the next event.

I had a great time!! Thanks to you all. The Rally was definitely an improvement and i am now encouraged to develop the car some more. At times in the other races the racing was so intense that i had to remind myself to “breathe” great stuff!!

Great night of racing as usual at FRC.
The Rally Class was particularly enjoyable, in part due to the large number of entrants. Nice to see O'Brie getting some very good results with his Porsche. Great to also see Anthony finally compete with his Honda Civic. It ran quite well but still needs some fettling. Tough break for Gordon with that unfortunate first stage.
There was great racing in the other classes too. In Slot.it Challenge, despite working very well in pre-qualifying testing, my Nissan R89C didn't allow me to get a good enough time to qualify for the race. The handling seemed a bit 'off' after a serious de-slot and I didn't have time to open it up to check. The race was excitement packed and I was able to enjoy looking at it from a non-driver perspective. F1 was also fun and although not as quick as the big guns, the (at least for this event) 'best of the rest' viz. Richard, O'Brie and I had a great battle among ourselves. Richard unfortunately was not able to drive his own car due to a chip issue early on. I fortunately had two F1 cars and was able to lend him a Dallara. He proceeded to beat me with it however ! The Scratch-Built action at the end of the event was great although there wasn't an actual race. Looking forward to seeing O'Brie's Mini at the next event !
Congrats to the winners .
Looking forward to the next event.
Steve

A brief synopsis of what took place at FRC ...

All Thrilling Rally Stages, Exciting Slot.It Endurance Race and (after qualifying) sorry I missed out on the Action Packed F1 racetrack.

All in all - great fellowship, olé talk, grand jokes and last but not least the beautiful looking slot-cars

Luke

Nice synopsis there Luke. We want to see you attending more regularly!

Just noticed a mistake in the F1 results where I selected "Richard" instead of "Richard R" (these are two different drivers). This effectively splits Richard R's total points, so I'll fix it on Monday. Of course this means we actually had nine drivers present, not ten.

I also noticed this small error Gordon and good of you too.

A slip-up (ever so often) is understandable with all these details ... and at the same time, trying to compete at your best in racing.

That said and for what it’s worth ... could you correct my name in your previous reply

Mind you, still thankful for all your delightful reporting.

Luke

Btw concerning your request - attending racing more regularly.

Sure you can see ...

I am somewhat one foot in but the other foot out. Also not long ago how you suggested - to show up when I feel like - which is presently working AOK for me.

However, about Richard R. in the F1 class and burning same chip (one-shot) at this event & of all brands - a Slot.It to boot

Sure made me feel bad for him because know what that feeling feels like. Yes we have all been through that but to help out the situation - I am donating a Scalextric F1 retro chip for his grand tuning efforts.

Luke

Luke, that's very kind of you to donate a chip . Well done !
Can someone please refresh my memory ? I remember one Richard being there, the one that I lent a Lancia 037, a Toyota 88C and a Dallara Indy to. I cannot remember a Richard and a Richard R.