Holiday breathers, floods and even a really nasty flu virus conspired to keep us from racing for over a month, but the return to FRC after this "summer break" went down very well for the drivers who took part. Scheduled classes were Porsche Cup and Historic Saloon and we had just the right number of drivers for a full grid in the six PC races that were run.
Five drivers qualified and drove the first race in PC. Luke, Steve, Alex, Arden and myself were then joined by Kevin for the remaining five races, allowing us to run them as planned with everyone switching to a different car for each race. This type of competition always levels the playing field and makes for some very competitive racing. The cars were often tightly bunched and many times drivers had to back off to avoid hitting cars ahead in the same lane lest they suffer a stop-and-go penalty. This notwithstanding, a few of us did meet that fate, making for even closer finishes. In one race first and second place were separated by less than two seconds after thirty hot laps of the FRC circuit. As always, concentration and controlled speed were the watchwords of the night and although in the end one driver was the clear points leader, the other places were anyone's guess.
After the frenetic PC races, things cooled down somewhat for the four drivers who ran in the three HS races. I was pleased to find my home-built Triumph TR-4A on pole in its inaugural race. That however was no guarantee of winning as the times were very close, especially between the top three qualifiers. Luke's Escort was suffering handling problems, and the Lotus Cortina I loaned to Arden experienced some impact-related malfunctions, so despite being very quick he was unable to convert this into a win. The closest consistent running was between Steve's MGB and my Triumph, both cars taking all the wins between them.
Steve and Luke helped me close up shop and pack the track away and then we sat for our usual post-mortem and general slot-racing chat before I threw them out just after midnight. It was a really nice evening of competition, a fit start for our return to regular racing.
The results
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Vintage Sports - 3 races @ 30 laps, Restricted GT - 3 races @ 30 laps, Slot.It Challenge - 3 races @ 30 laps. Don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Also of interest are the updated class average qualifying times.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
When next you are doing track maintenance could you invite the guys to help or even do/have a PC practice session 