After much planning FRC's first 2-hour race came off last Saturday with a smaller than expected turnout, but despite this, the competition was as keen as expected. To ensure that everything would be ready in time, I stayed home from work and started race-day preparations early. Steve arrived at around 2:30 PM to help prepare the track and Alex joined us with son Nathaniel not long after and started working on the BBQ. Bit by bit others arrived and by the time we were ready to start qualifying for our Scalextric GT Challenge (SGTC) support races there were nine drivers present.
We split the SGTC races into two subgroups A and B - the former with five drivers, the latter four. In qualifying, Steve was quickest overall with Ramesh fastest of the B group. In group B, Ramesh took the wins in three of the four races, ensuring him of the class win. Group A saw Luke take three wins in the five races, putting him at the top of the score sheet at the end.
We then moved on to the main event, FRC's first ever 2-hour race, this one for our Vintage Sports cars. In the past, the longest endurance races we've hosted were for 40 minutes, which are just long races by comparison with a race three times this length, so it would prove to be a real test of man and machine for FRC, albeit at 1/32 scale. Despite the availability of extra driver spots, one team cancelled a week before the event and a second never turned up, so we finally ended up with four teams, two of three drivers, two of two, a total of ten drivers. One bright light was Mark H taking on the chief steward's responsibilities, a role he could not have carried out better.
We qualified the cars then immediately inspected them, all remaining in parc ferme till the race start. The team Gordon/Steve Ford GT40 took pole, closely followed by the similar car of South Team A (Ramesh/Luke B/Arden), South Team B (Jon/Marlon) in another GT40, followed by the Ferrari P4 of "The Perfect Storm" (Luke/Alex/Nathaniel). Young Nathaniel stood in for Dougie who also never showed, making the team more of an "Almost-Perfect Storm". Once the cars were set for their driving stations and the race duration set on the PowerBase, we were ready to run.
From the start, with an estimated 1,200 laps to go, the pace was as fast as one of our weekly 25-lap sprint races. Soon thereafter it was realised that the Luke/Alex/Nathaniel P4 which had not visibly led a lap was shown by the computer display to be in the lead. But worse than that for team Gordon/Steve was that their GT40 was not changing lanes from lap one and around lap 40 it was shown to have not recorded a single lap. On pulling the car off to check, it was discovered that the problem came from the tech inspection sticker which was covering the optical sensor that allows lane-changing and lap-recording. The race was temporarily red-flagged by our very effective chief steward while this was rectified and rather than restarting everything, it was decided that 35 laps would be added to the car to compensate for the unrecorded laps.
As the race proceeded, each team's strategy varied with respect to driver stints and service pit stops. Some changed drivers after a basically fixed time for each stint whilst others gave more track time to their quickest driver. In the case of team Gordon/Steve, both drivers shared stints of equal but diminishing length. All but the latter made service stops to lube the cars, clean tyres and do whatever quick tweaks they could to regain some lost performance, the Gordon/Steve GT40 only stopping for driver changes. As time wore on, despite sore fingers and cramping hands, everyone drove on like it was the last lap of the race - it was going to be a flat-out endurance race from start to finish.
A bit past the midway point, the two South Team GT40s were holding station next to each other, one in each lane with the blue Gordon/Steve GT40 unable to get past, despite being clearly quicker (had the South cars slowed?). After several laps of this, Steve drove through the car in front out of frustration, did the requisite drive-through penalty and rejoined to a clearer track. By this time the blue car was shown to be in the lead (with the 35-lap adjustment), the strategy of only stopping for driver changes clearly paying off. About twenty minutes before the two hours was up, the green Luke/Alex/Nathaniel P4 was retired with a broken guide flag cable. Not long after this, the body of the red South Team A GT40 started to drag on the track, slowing its lap times. This was eventually fixed with a service pit stop. Attrition was rearing its ugly head as the laps took their toll. Up front the lead GT40 kept running like clockwork, as did the yellow South Team B GT40, both adding up the laps with minimal fuss.
With about seven minutes to go we had our second race hiccup when the SSDC computer display suddenly showed the lead car (actually the second-placed car because of the aforementioned 35-lap adjustment to the Gordon/Steve car) go from 999 laps to 000 laps! We realised that the SSDC software appeared not to go beyond 999 laps, despite the PowerBase's ability to do so. Because of this we ended the race at that point, unclear of exactly how many laps over the 999 had actually been done (perhaps 8-10). In the final (approximate) tally, the four cars ended as they had started - 1,2,3,4. The first FRC 2-Hours was history.
Despite the few setbacks we experienced, the FRC 2-Hour event was a success. On the negative side, just four teams competed, we had the error with the tech inspection sticker, the strange situation of the wrong car showing as leader early in the race and the problem with premature end of the race. From this experience we now know that the cars need a few pre-race test laps just prior to the start of such a long race. I've also confirmed with the SSDC software author that it in fact only goes to 999 laps, so this has to be taken into account until this limit is changed. In the positive side, we had a very interesting and challenging experience, the support races were fun and the ribs, fried rice and macaroni salad went down very well, as did the great company, camaraderie and competitive nature of an event like this. Special thanks to Luke, Alex, Ramesh and Arden for the food, to Mark H for his effective role as chief steward and to everyone for attending.
I know that Arden has some pics of the event which will be posted to the forum. In the mean time, here's one of the winning car after the race:
The results
FRC 2-Hours
Congratulations to the winners.
2014 Overall Class Points Update
Next event's classes: Class grouping H: GT - 5 races @ 40 laps, LMP - 5 races @ 40 laps. As usual, don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated 2014 Class Points Standings.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon