Race report #244 - Thursday Dec 7th 2017 (RC, SC, F1)

[gordon]

RACE REPORT #244 - Dec 7th 2017 (RC, SC, F1)

Our final event for 2017 saw six of our most regular drivers compete against one another for honours in our Rally, Slot.It Challenge and Formula 1 classes. The trend for 2017 has been a general closing up of the times between the slowest and fastest cars in each class, and so it was again on Thursday night. The individual rally lap times as well as the overall stage times were very close and consistent for each driver once their car had no problems. Fastest stage times were 41.926 (Ramesh), 43.088 (Gordon), 43.461 (Luke), 44.176 (Arden), 44.178 (Steve) and 44.780 (O'Brie). These are each for five laps of FRC, so this indicates how competitive the class has become. Slot.It Challenge was also pretty close, especially amongst the top four cars and there was just a half-second separating the five official F1 qualifiers. I again ran my F1 prototype as an unofficial entrant in both qualifying and the races and this helped us gauge what we can do to formalise next year's F1 class regs.

All in all, it was fitting end to the racing season at FRC and we can look forward to even closer racing next year as we continue to tweak the class regulations and our cars in the interest of closer racing.



The results



The rally competitors:








Slot.It Challenge starting grid:


Great aerial pic by Arden of four-car pile up going through the uphill esses:






Formula 1 starting grid:


Accident going round the Cayman Pond hairpin:


View of all the F1 cars during race action:










Santa got into the action with his own slot car track on the Carousel infield:


Congratulations to the winners.

Merry Christmas to all FRC participants and their families. May you have a happy, peaceful and spiritual Christmas holiday and wonderful New Year.


Next event's classes and date will be announced on the Forum and via e-mail in early 2018.

Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest times by driver and class for 2017 to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated fastest times for 2017.

See you on the circuit...
Gordon

[RameshB]

Compliments of the season to all, may you all have a safe and holy Christmas. Thanks to all who made our year of racing memorable, it gives me great pleasure to fellowship with you men in this way.I appreciate the maturity and professional way in which things are done at FRC. Happy Holidays slot car friends.

[steveaca]

Great night of racing as usual at FRC. Nice to have full grids for all classes raced although O'Brie unfortunately retired his Mazda 787 for the last Slot.it Challenge race. Hard luck to Gordon on those electrical gremlins popping up during his Rally Car run. He really had that Alpine dialed -in, as can be seen from that 8.199 sec. fastest lap that he did. O'Brie also has gotten his rally car (Porsche 911) sorted and his times reflect this. The Bhola-tuned cars , as usual, did not disappoint, especially when combined with great driving by Ramesh, Arden and Luke. The other classes were also great fun . I very much enjoyed the SC class although my Nissan R89 suffered some spoiler damage in an early race so was racing with an aerodynamic disadvantage from then on !
Was nice to see Peter up and walking and even doing a few laps with a rally car. He couldn't be persuaded to race however. Hopefully next time ...
Congrats to Arden on winning Slot.it Challenge and Ramesh on winning Rally and F1 classes.
Gordon, there is an error in the Rally points as I got 0 in the second stage.
Have a Happy and Holy Christmas everyone and a happy,safe and peaceful New Year.

[Luke]

A very simple but effective report/response from Ramesh and Steve's written account was just as pleasing ...

One thing though - he forgot to mention Alex (the Lone Ranger) even if he just shows up (most times) for no more than a hour and then leaves without his mask - I mean racing

In light conversation - I asked Alex why he shows up at FRC without racing and his answer was a very straightforward one.

• "At least I get to see you'll ..."

Which was a very kind and worthy answer.

He even played a trick question on me and said Nathan is a shorten name for Nathaniel and asked what is the shortened name for Ethan ... within a few seconds - I told him Ethanol

The point I'm making - is we not only race slotcars well together but also enjoy each other's friendly company.

Luke

[gordon]

Thank you Ram and the same to you and yours for Christmas. Well said. What would be the point of all these cars and the tracks to drive them on without good friends to share them and create so much enjoyment?

Steve, thanks for pointing out that error. I don't know how that happened, as the computer works it all out. I'll have a good look at it and sort it out on Monday when I'm at work where it's all done on my main computer.

Luke, nice little insight there. It's what Ram always talks about - the fellowship and camaraderie we share, brought together and bound by our common love of the hobby. We have close friendships with others we may never have met, were it not for this great hobby. All the same I would love to see Alex become a regular driver again next year (yuh hear me Alex? )

[obrie]

You Guys have said it all! Thanks for the fun and all have a safe and Merry Christmas. See you soon!

[gordon]

Steve, I found the error and have corrected it, so your points for rally stage 2 are now appearing. This now moves you up in the rally points and champion driver points.