Another exciting night at FRC saw 8 drivers competing for honours in Porsche Cup and Modified Production. Peter was still in T&T so attended his second event in succession, something I was happy about as he's a very enthusiastic motor sport fan, a racer of both karts and real cars and of course, an avid slot racer. Being based in Nigeria, he seldom gets the chance to race slot cars at the FRC level and it was great to have him do two events in a row before rushing off for a 4AM flight the following morning. Unfortunately Ray was already back home in the US for this one.
PC saw its usual very challenging ups and downs as each driver moved from car to car. Its often a game of adapt or lose and no more so than when we have over six drivers competing for the available grid positions, as was the case on Thursday. With eight drivers the last two in qualifying and each race stepped out, making it vital to place in the top four to have a shot at the class championship. In the end deciding the winner came down to the final race, with a single point separating first and second.
MP was another eye-opener. Being the first to qualify, when I managed a time of 5.578 sec in my re-vamped BMC Mini, I thought I had a shot at pole. Boy was I wrong. With each successive qualifier, the times continued to drop till Luke B. managed a single qualifying lap of 5.246 sec before de-slotting! He probably would have gone into the 5.1 sec bracket had he completed his next two laps. I ended up 5th on the grid, .3 sec off the pole (5 cars separated by .3 sec!!). The previous lap record was 5.488 (also set by Luke B.) which seemed amazing at the time. Talk about the bar being raised. The races themselves were very close and competitive and it was nice to see Peter grab a win in his beautiful, well-prepared Zakspeed Capri running the lowest-RPM motor in the group - a 21,400 RPM NSR. In all there were four different race winners which attests to how close the racing was.
New Lap Records
- MP - 5.246 sec (Luke B., Scalextric Porsche Boxster)
Congratulations to the winners.
2013 Overall Class Points Update
Next event's classes: Historic Saloon - 5 races @ 20 laps, Vintage Sports - 5 races @ 20 laps, Group 5 Sports Car - 5 races @ 20 laps. 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 full 2013 Class Points Standings.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
