A good turnout of ten drivers arrived for our medium-paced class event - Restricted GT, Slot.It Challenge and F1. A face we haven't seen for quite a while was there - Shane came along with business colleague Al from Canada. We also had a few kids present - Alex's son Nathaniel and Steve's son Jonathan were there and did some driving. Zoë joined them for a short session till her cousin Emily arrived.
Because of the public holiday the following day, things ran at a leisurely pace and we didn't get qualifying started till around 10:00 PM. With nine drivers, Restricted GT had the largest entry and was split into A and B subgroups based on qualifying times. Slot.It Challenge and F1 each had six to seven entries and were run as single groups.
Racing was close in Restricted GT, the top seven qualifiers being separated by less than a second. Dougie and myself emerged the main contenders for the A-subgroup championship win. Kyle had a competitive car in my Viper, but was sidelined by transmission problems during the first race. Shane's Corvette also ran well in the class, finishing third in the points, while Luke's new Maserati Trofeo's debut showed that the car has potential for the class. The B-subgroup was won by Alex's new Jaguar despite him missing the final race. Steve did well in his almost standard Ferrari F430 with its questionably-legal front "tyres". Al had his first taste of digital racing with my oversteering Jaguar but did not do badly and appeared to have a ball. Boo's Nissan 350Z was basically a non-runner and looks to need a total rebuild.
Slot.It Challenge was extremely competitive, with Shane taking pole and showing that both he and his cars are still very-much front runners. However, that didn't stop Laird from pulling off his first ever total class-dominating performance by winning all three races. This was a popular victory as Laird has been really trying hard and in recent weeks has improved his driving and car-preparation skills. He was totally untouchable and it was a well-deserved win. Dougie had some particularly bad luck with the marshals and his previously fast Lancia was unable to repeat past performances.
F1 saw a slight decrease in the performance of the Dallaras after they want back to the class-stipulated Slot.It 21,500 RPM motors. Not being one to refuse a challenge, Luke appeared with a new Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari which he had prepared and proceeded to blow away the rest of the field in qualifying. In the races Shane drove Luke's Dallara and was able to take the championship win by two points from - surprise, surprise - me! I only got that high up by being fortunate to avoid many of the multiple crashes that occurred during the races which took their toll on faster cars. Alex had his usual fast Dallara and Boo his very quick Ferrari, but both had mixed results. Dougie again suffered with crashes and marshaling issues in his not-quite-competitive Renault.
At the end of the night I managed to top the total points standings whilst there was a two-way tie for Index of Performance honors taken by Shane and Laird. We finally closed shop around 2:00 AM after the usual post-race "lime" in the driveway.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Next event's classes: Porsche Cup, Historic Saloon, Vintage Sports - see the regulations here.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon