Steve, O'Brie and Peter joined me at FRC around 2:30pm for some testing and a little racing of our no-magnet Kitbash and Clubman cars. We started off the usual close lapping of the track with similar-performing cars from these two classes over long periods, which is always a lot of fun.
It's interesting how close these cars have become. I've also come to realize how differently they have to be driven when compared to magnet-equipped cars. The focus is on consistency and the areas that matter are braking points and power application points. Brake too late and you're either off or sideways, too early and you're going too slow. With power application, if you're too early you go sideways or spin, too late or not stabbing the throttle to take advantage of short straights or straigh-ish sections and you again are going too slow. And of course you have to try to do this lap after lap. Very challenging but also very satisfying when you get it right.
I spent some time working with O'Brie on his Clubman Escort and we got it going a lot smoother than when it started out. Still needs some work, but it has improved significantly.
We eventually had three races, each with different cars out of this Kitbash and Clubman mix. For the first race we rolled the dice for grid positions, resulting in O'Brie's Mini starting from pole, my Mini second, Peter driving Steve's Lotus Cortina in third and Steve's MGB in fourth. The Mini versus MGB battle was about to be played out!
After fifteen laps of action the results were:
1st - Gordon
2nd - Steve
3rd - O'Brie
4th - Peter
So for this one, Mini vanquished MGB.
We immediately had a second race with starting positions based on the previous race finishing places, so my Triumph TR4A started from pole, followed by Steve's Cortina, O'Brie's Escort and Peter driving Steve's BMW.
This fifteen-lapper again saw lots of action with the following results:
1st - Gordon
2nd - Steve
3rd - O'Brie
4th - Peter
We moved right on to our final race, this time with a reversed grid based on the previous race, with Peter driving my Mustang GT350 on pole, O'Brie's Renault second, Steve's orange American car (I can't remember what model it is) third and my similar-colored NSU TT fourth.
This was a difficult one for me, as O'Brie and I had a coming together on the back straight on the first lap, giving Steve and Peter a substantial lead. Try as we did, Steve was unassailable for the fifteen lap duration of the race which finished as follows:
1st - Steve
2nd - Gordon
3rd - O'Brie
4th - Peter
We had a last beer accompanied by the long-missed camaraderie, with old talk and lots of smiles recalling the fun we had and closed up shop around 6:30pm. Looking forward to when COVID is no longer a threat so we can all - north and south groups - get together again.
