Seven drivers and three "marshals" comprised the drivers for event 159 at FRC. Scheduled classes were GT and LMP, two of our three quickest classes and quite appropriately, a special new speed record was broken, but more on that in a moment.
Ramesh took pole in GT with a new lap record of 4.313 sec, just 0.847 sec separating all seven qualifiers. However things got more interesting in LMP qualifying when Luke B's Cadillac Northstar failed to record a time on its second lap, then showed a time in the 7.98 sec range for his third lap. If you divide that by two you get 3.99 (the PowerBase is set to ignore any times under 4 sec flat). Now since we last ran LMP cars he had suggested to me that his car may have done a sub-4 sec lap, so this time I changed the PowerBase minimum time to 3.5 sec and set him out to do two more laps. Lo and behold, he recorded an amazing time of 3.992 sec, the fastest time ever recorded at FRC! Congratulations Luke (and Ramesh for building the car). Here's a pic taken for posterity:
The GT races were once again dominated by Luke B. who took four wins, with Ramesh taking one. Second and third places were shared by Ramesh, Steve, Alex and I. In LMP, Luke B., Ramesh and I shared the wins, with the lion's share going to Luke B. The cars were going so fast that when there was a de-slot, they would become missiles, gyrating and flying fast and hard into anything nearby. In one instance my Lola-Aston hit Steve's Peugeot going into Foster's corner at the end of the downhill back straight and launched the Peugeot over the fence and onto the floor.
We had three "marshals" races after the main races were run, with Marlon, Jon and Jonathan competing. All three drivers each won a race leaving the champion to be decided by the secondary placings.
The results
Congratulations to the winners.
2014 Overall Class Points Update
Next event's classes: We've completed the first cycle of classes for 2014 and will go back to class grouping A: Mixed GT IROC - 6 races @ 25 laps, Slot.It Challenge - 5 races @ 35 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
hehe