We had another enjoyable track session at FRC yesterday. Keith joined O'Brie, Steve and I for some more magless fun with the Kitbash and Clubman cars. I had also asked that Vintage Sports GT and BTCC cars be brought along to test and there's more on that topic in the link at the bottom of this post. The paddock ended up full of cars:
The informal driving amongst one another was full of the usual close dicing and not without its crashes, including this one:
After a lot of fun with this, we had two fifteen lap races, rolling the dice for the first race grid positions, resulting in Keith starting on pole with Steve's Lotus Cortina, O'Brie's Mini second, my Mini third and Steve's MGB fourth.
After the usual action-filled laps, following were the results:
1st - Steve
2nd - Gordon
3rd - Keith
4th - O'Brie
This equalized the Mini vs MGB rivalry from the previous session a few weeks ago, with one win each.
We switched to different cars for the second race and had a reverse grid start based on race-one finishing positions. This put O'Brie's Escort on pole, followed by Keith driving Steve's Chevy Lumina, my NSU TT and Steve's BMW.
There was even more action in this race, including this three-car pile up, resulting in the Lumina losing its bonnet!
At the end, the finishing positions were:
1st - Gordon
2nd - Steve
3rd - Keith
4th - O'Brie
In between all the testing, tuning and racing, we had the mandatory break with old talk, during which corona showed up poorly trying to disguise itself as a Stag, but it was quickly recognized:
After Keith and O'Brie left, Steve and I continued to pit different cars against each other and it was amazing how close some of them were matched. Here are some times after running my NSU (red) against his BMW (green):
The fifteen lap races with these classes run for just over five minutes, averaging about 20 sec per lap with de-slot stop/start interruptions. As we get more practice racing them and have fewer offs, this average will no doubt come down.
Again, it was nice to run some cars and continue enjoying our hobby despite the pandemic situation. I really look forward to having our partners from south come up and experience the challenges and satisfaction of racing these non-mag classes in the not too distant future. I know you guys will rise to it and have as much fun as we have been having.
There's a bit more information on Saturday's FRC happenings and my thoughts from the experience on the following post:
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