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RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2024 4:59 pm
by gordon
RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Having not run any rallys for almost four and a half years (since March 2020), a decision was taken to have a rally session, and what a great decision it was! Nine drivers turned up to takle the stages, giving everyone a chance to see who'd master them. Although there were several new cars, many of us pulled out and dusted off our old rally cars to prepare for the event. As usual, three stages of five laps per car were run, drivers rolling a dice to determine the sequence of each starter.

As usual, all but the driver and the person recording the times for each stage were spread out around the table to marshal any de-slotted cars, of which there several. The key here was to go as fast as possible without coming out the slot, something that can seriously affect your results, as some drivers - including myself - were reminded of. Whereas the previous Powerbase showed cumulative times for each driver's laps, the new Powerbase treats each lap as a separate time. But this didn't affect the recording of the times, although it did result in some lengthly re-programming in our results database which compiles and computes all the info. You'll notice some stage times as exactly 90 sec. This is based on a long-written rule that for anyone who completes the five laps of a stage in over 90 seconds, his time will be set as 90 seconds. You can see this in the Rally Class rules here:

https://frcforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=279

By the time all stages were run, we were asking ourselves why we'd waited so long to re-introduce rallying to our hobby. I'm sure it'll now be a regularly-scheduled class like all the others.



Some pics by Luke to start things off:

Everyone busy getting prepared for the rally:
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Practice time:
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Removing the magnet from Mark's LMP car:
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Lucas checking things out:
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Three slot racers taking a break:
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FRC mascot Gunther sneaks a peek from under the board-room table:
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Steve's Impreza:
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Steve driving a stage:
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O'brie's Porsche:
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O'Brie driving a stage:
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Peter's Alpine:
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Peter driving a stage:
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Luke's Peugeot:
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Luke driving a stage:
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Jon's Peugeot:
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Jon driving a stage:
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Ian's Peugeot:
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Ian driving a stage:
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My Peugeot:
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Me driving a stage and not looking very happy with how its going:
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Warren's Lancer:
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Mark's Citroen:
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Warren and Mark practising (no stage driving pics):
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Rally results

Official timesheet:
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The orange highlights below indicate who did the best time for each lap of each stage, the driver who did the fastest lap for the stage and the driver with the lowest variation in times driving the stage.

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Congratulations to the top three, O'Brie in third, Peter in second and Steve for taking first place, winning every stage in the process and topping the best of everything in the third stage!


Total Championship Points for 2024:

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Next event's classes: Scalextric BTCC, GT, LMP.

Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest no-magnet times by driver and class to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.

See you on the circuit...
Gordon

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:51 pm
by steveaca
Great event as usual at FRC, especially as we haven't done a Rally Class event in so long. I know that Luke, O'Brie, Gordon and myself were familiar with this type of event but it certainly was novel for Ian, Warren and Mark. I believe Jonathan and Peter competed in this before but this would have been eons ago and they were not regulars. Everyone seemed to have had a blast and some of the times were very close.
I really must commend Gordon for the amount of info presented in this race report and for how easy it is to understand. Also love the photos of the individual cars at the start of each stage and of the drivers while in action. Thanks Luke and Gordon for this.
Well done to all competitors ....second, third and fourth place overall times were all the same to the whole second, only fractions of a second separating them. Another standout for me was O'Brie's consistency of times in the first and second stages.
Congrats to the podium finishers !
Looking forward to the next event.

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:55 pm
by steveaca
Hi Gordon,
One small correction: the Citroën C4 driven by Mark is Jonathan's , not mine.

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:29 pm
by gordon
steveaca wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:55 pm Hi Gordon,
One small correction: the Citroën C4 driven by Mark is Jonathan's , not mine.
Hi Steve, I've fixed it. You may have to refresh the page in your browser or empty the caches and reload the page to see it.

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2024 11:56 am
by Warren D
**Great event as always! Although I wasn’t able to arrive early for my sighting laps and couldn’t get the car where I wanted it to be, I still had a fantastic time. We live and learn! A massive congratulations to Steve for his stellar performance. I’m looking forward to the next meet and the potential for further development of the rally class.**

### **1. Rally Thoughts**

I was considering a few ways we could make changes to the track between each stage to ensure that each one feels unique:

- **First Run:** Use the inner lane.
- **Second Run:** Switch to the outer lane.
- **Final Run:** Mix the lanes for added challenge.

Additionally, we could introduce some bollards or obstacles on the track, with a time penalty for hitting them. This could add an extra layer of realism and excitement to the races.

After writing that first part, another idea came to mind: Given how efficient we are with time at our rally events, we could consider adding a new class or two to introduce more variety.

### **1. World RallyCross**

Rally cars would race at the same time, with a Joker Lap rule: either one complete lap must be done on the outer lane, or a segment of the lap must be completed on the outer lane during the race. This might require more monitoring and keen-eyed marshals to ensure fairness, but it could be an exciting addition.

### **2. IROC/Spec Rally**

For this class, we could run a single stage where everyone uses the same car, either a random car from a donor pool or an IROC car. This would remove the car from the equation, allowing us to truly see where each driver stands in terms of skill.

Just some thoughts on how we can continue to increase the fun factor in our favorite hobby!

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2024 7:48 pm
by obrie
Wazz!! What a great time we had😁. I lost a lot in the last lap of the last race ! Guess I miscalculated on laps as I derailed on the 1st corner after the start finish line however there was no catching Steve as he was WAY out there. Well done Steve congrats👍 I have a lot of work to do.....as usual 😂😂

Re: RACE REPORT #324 - August 24th 2024 (Rally Car)

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2024 7:45 pm
by Luke
It was a pleasure to compete in Rally Car Class ... after such a long time ... RD285 / March 2020

Result: 8 Position / 153.515 Time / 3 Points ... and was super inconsistent with slot-car :(
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Sadly, my performance wasn't so pleasing again ... after such a long time ... RD324 / August 2024

Result: 8 Position / 202.399 Time / 3 Points ... and wasn't in harmony with slot-car :?
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Interestingly enough, notice how the overall Times have slowed down somewhat from 2020 vs 2024 and maybe could blame it on the Covid-19 Pandemic :?

:arrow: I believe the reason for Rally Car Class, taking so long to be hosted (in 2024) because it was already / officially a Non-Mag Racing event and the transition with the other 12 official Mag Racing classes to be changed to Non-Mag - late 2020 - is what caused / put a stopwatch hold on the popular FRC RC class ;)

I might be wrong and only my thoughts with a response :D

At the same time ...
  • Rally Car Class is BACK !!!
Post No. 2232