Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

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gordon
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Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

Post by gordon »

RACE REPORT #276 - Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

After a few weeks of excitement, during which FRC's new British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) class was announced and a record number of people registered cars for the category, our first event was held, with nine drivers bringing cars to compete. Being a brand-new class, there was no reference point for the kind of times to expect, so drivers hit the track as soon as they arrived to set practice times and determine where they stood with the competition. As you'll see from the qualifying times below, with the stand-out exception of one car, all the rest were very close indeed.

As scheduled, we started the event with the rally stages and were happy to welcome one of T&T's very talented (but crazy in my mind!) circuit bike racers, Warren Luke De Nobriga (Luke D) as a first-time FRC competitor. Warren got his feet wet driving the rally stages in a loaner car from Steve, this class being a particularly difficult one to go fast in since the cars are magnet-less, but, being the competitive type, he improved with each stage. Once again the stages were close at the front and it was good to see the improvement O'Brie has made with his Porsche, even getting down into the rare 7-second lap time bracket for the first time.

The single Slot.It Challenge race was almost something of an afterthought, as it was getting late and everyone was pretty tuckered out, but at least we were able to complete the programme.



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The results

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The rally competitors:
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With a total of nine entries, our inaugural BTCC class was split into two races, followed by a reverse-grid final comprising the top three from each group. Here's the race-one starting grid with Luke B's VW Passat on pole, followed by my Honda Civic, O'Brie's Civic, Steve's BMW 125i and Arden's Civic:
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The second BTCC grid saw Luke T's BMW 125i at the front, followed by Anthony's Civic, Ramesh's BMW and Devi's Civic:
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The BTCC reverse grid final, with Luke T. at the front driving Arden's Civic, Anthony's Civic, Ramesh's BMW 125i, Steve's similar car, my Civic and Luke B's Passat temporarily bringing up the rear:
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Luke B's VW Passat lies stranded near the Dunlop bridge after an off in race one:
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More race-one action as Arden's Civic goes sideways ahead of O'Brie's Civic and Steve's BMW while Luke B plays a little catch-up behind. My Civic is temporarily at the front on the infield:
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This is how close things were at times during the BTCC races. In this race-three shot, my Civic is somewhat sandwiched between Ramesh's BMW in front and Steve's extremely close following BMW:
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More third race fun as Anthony's Civic, Luke's Civic, Luke B's Passat and my Civic do battle on the infield:
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Slot.It Challenge starting grid - Ramesh's Nissan R89C sits on pole, followed by Luke B's Nissan R90CK, Arden driving a Team Bhola Toyota 88C, my R89C and Steve's 88C. My R89C had actually qualified third fastest, but was written up as fourth and started from that position:
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My R89C lies on its roof along the downhill back straight after I crashed it into Arden's 88C, as Steve's 88C heads into the sunset on the road below:
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(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), Formula 1 (F1).

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
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Re: Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

Post by steveaca »

Great night of racing as usual at FRC.
It was nice to see a few new faces as well as some non-regulars show up. The Rally class was as intense as ever but good fun. My Impreza performed well but just didn't have that little extra something (or maybe it was the driver !) to overhaul the top two contenders. The BTCC class really proved to be a hit, as expected and the racing was close and competitive. In Slot.It Challenge, my Nissan R89 let me down with a now suspected chip issue.Thankfully I had my trusty Toyota on hand which, while off the pace, has always been reliable.
Concerning the points system for the BTCC class, I would like to suggest that we refer to the thread titled 'Subgroup points suggestion' under the 'Racing' category of the forum. This suggests (and I believe was agreed upon) that when there is more than one race in a group, and that when the placement in these races is determined by a qualifying time, the drivers in the faster qualifying race(s) should get more points than the slower race(s). Using this system, Luke B. would still have won the class overall but there would have been a three-way tie for second as well as some other overall result reshuffles.
Having said that, congrats go to Ramesh on winning Heat 2 of the BTCC class and to Luke B.on winning everything else.
Looking forward to the next event.
Steve
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Re: Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

Post by RameshB »

Great night of racing lots of fun thanks to all for making it out to enjoy this sport.
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Re: Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

Post by gordon »

steveaca wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2019 9:54 am Concerning the points system for the BTCC class, I would like to suggest that we refer to the thread titled 'Subgroup points suggestion' under the 'Racing' category of the forum. This suggests (and I believe was agreed upon) that when there is more than one race in a group, and that when the placement in these races is determined by a qualifying time, the drivers in the faster qualifying race(s) should get more points than the slower race(s). Using this system, Luke B. would still have won the class overall but there would have been a three-way tie for second as well as some other overall result reshuffles.
The post Steve is referring to can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=722

I pondered doing this when preparing the report, but decided to leave the standard system in place for this event and have the drivers themselves air their thoughts. It seems to me that if we implement this for the future events (regardless of class), we should add the first place points gained for each subgroup to the previous subgroup. Here is our point system:

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Here are two examples of what I'm suggesting:

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Of course, if we go with this, I have to put on my thinking cap and figure out how to program it!
Luke
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Re: Race report #276 - Thursday Aug 22nd 2019 (RC, BTCC, SC)

Post by Luke »

Hard luck a photo wasn’t taken of all 14 BTCC cars present ... Somewhat like the Rally Car class.

It would have been a nice touch to the night’s first time event by 9 drivers.

01. Luke B ....... VW Passat No.40
02. Ramesh ...... BMW No.111 & Honda Civic No.52
03. Steve ........ BMW No.7
04. Gordon ...... Honda Civic No.303
05. O’Brie ....... Honda Civic No.22
06. Luke ......... BMWs No.100 & No.4 plus a VW Passat No.24
07. Anthony ..... BMWs No.77 & No.5 plus a Honda Civic No.55
08. Devi .......... Honda Civic No.52
09. Arden ........ Honda Civic No.25

The 9 underlined BTCC car numbers, are the ones that were raced :-)

Maybe a photo of them (altogether) at next event.

Luke
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