After initially conceiving the idea of a special endurance event about a year ago which would reflect what happens in real endurance racing where both LMP and GT cars race together, FRC's inaugural LMP-E/GT-E one-hour endurance took place last Saturday. With a requirement of at least two drivers per car, we needed a minimum of twelve drivers for a full grid of six cars, three LMP and three GT. Unfortunately, only ten drivers turned up, reducing the grid to two LMP and three GT cars at the start of the race, despite there being more than six cars prepared specifically for the event present.
Before the race start, my LMP Audi R18 which missed qualifying because of a disconnected wire, was scratched despite being repaired since there was had no co-driver available capable of driving the rather difficult to handle car. Instead, Dion and I drove Luke's extra car, a Corvette in the GT-E class which Luke had finished putting together just before qualifying began.
Early into the race, the Steve/Keith Audi R8 GT suddenly stopped on track whilst running second in GT-E. As the race continued, Steve checked the car and announced a "terminal problem" - a broken wire connected to the installed F1 chip. At the head of the pack, the Luke B/Ramesh Cadillac was leading, closely followed by the Luke T/Alex Acura. Holding a competitive third overall and first in GT-E was the Jon/Marlon Porsche 911 GT1, with the Gordon/Dion Corvette running steadily at the back of the depleted field.
When Dion took over from me thirty minutes into the race, I headed to the the repair bench to look at the Steve/Keith retired Audi and was able to quickly re-solder the chip wire. Steve rejoined the race, albeit with an unsurmountable lap deficit to get back into contention. As the driver switching continued amongst the teams, the positions remained unchanged. At one point the Jon/Marlon Porsche appeared to have a hiccup, but this was quickly determined to be a misaligned braid and sorted out.
I have to mention that it was great to have my old friend and racing buddy O'Brie present for the whole race. Although he turned down an offer to drive, he marshalled and provided words of wisdom and some humour throughout the race. Hopefully we'll see him for some of our upcoming regular biweekly events in a driver/car owner capacity.
All in all, it was a successful running of a mixed-class endurance race, a first for FRC. At one hour's length and with a relatively early start, it was a fine evening of model car racing that did not go late into the night and we able to relax with a few beers, talking over the race for quite some time afterwards.
Results
Starting grid:
Drivers concentrating during the race:
Jonathan (Jon) looks on after Marlon took over their Porsche:
Positions with 19 min 42 sec to go:
O'Brie smiles as he focuses on marshalling duty:
Final results:
Congratulations to team Luke and Ramesh for first place in LMP-E as well as first overall and to Jon and Marlon for first in GT-E.
Next event's classes: Group C classes: Mini Challenge IROC - 6 races @ 20 laps, Rally Car - 3 five-lap stages per car, 1 car at a time (90 laps for 6 cars). 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 fastest times for 2015.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
