Rain threatened our final event for the year, but by 6:00PM the sky water had stopped, allowing O'Brie and I to lower the track from the ceiling and start prepping it for the night. We had decided to turn up the voltage slightly from 13.5V to 14V and we gave the rails a new coating of Inox, both of these resulting in good power throughout the lap for our scheduled American Muscle, GT and LMP racing. Eight drivers turned up and it would have been more had Steve received his notification text in time and Aaron and a guest he had planned to introduce to FRC not gotten wasted on alco after dining on sushi, but such is life. Of the eight present, both Luke and Arden decided not to race as they had no competitive cars, but they kindly took on marshalling duty and the abuse of drivers right to the end of the evening. Jimmy also dropped in and helped out with some marshalling.
Early practice runs showed that it would be a night of very fast racing when I got down to a 4.6 sec time in my GT Ferrari F430 and Kyle topped this by doing a 4.4 sec lap in his AM Boss Mustang. All the cars were very fast with qualifying times almost all being within less than a second of one another. As expected, Kyle put his Mustang on pole in AM with me doing likewise in GT with my F430, while Brent qualified his Jaguar XJR9 fastest in LMP. No one driver dominated the classes.
The promise in qualifying was fulfilled in the AM races for Kyle who took two wins and a second place, clinching the class championship. O'Brie, Dougie and I were the main contenders for second overall as Brent and Boo had mechanical issues that prevented either from challenging.
In GT, Brent and I when head to head for all three races, with O'Brie leading the rest. It came down to the last race to separate the class winner from second by just four points.
As with the other classes, when Brent's LMP car was running, he was almost unbeatable, but a combination of mechanical issues and driver errors precluded him from putting this to his advantage, particularly in LMP where he had qualified fastest. This left the door wide open for O'Brie to dominate, with myself and Kyle being the best of the rest.
Like last week, we had a welcome break in the racing for BBQ pork ribs courtesy Boo and chicken along with Pecos macaroni salad and other goodies courtesy Debbie, with Dougie doing duty at the coal pot. Brent and Kyle went down to grab some sausages for the grill at SuperPharm and these were passed round as cutters for all to enjoy. Thanks to all for their parts in putting this together.
Aside from the competitive (and at times crazy) racing - many having to do stop-and-go penalties for drive-throughs (I did three!) - there were the inevitable funny moments. The top honours in this category went to Boo and Brent when the latter, driving on throttle six, de-slotted near Boo who was himself retrieving his car and called for the car to be thrown to him, at the same time taking off to get it himself. Trying to be a good samaritan, Boo tossed the car to the now empty throttle six station. The car whizzed past O'Brie's and my faces and although I was focused on driving, I knew that there was no one there to catch it and it hit the ground hard, as would be expected. Well I almost got a stomach cramp as I burst into laughter (still driving, mind you) and I saw Luke bend over in stitches. Everyone (except Brent) had a big laugh as the race went on. Man this hobby is fun!
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Porsche Cup, Historic Saloon, Vintage Sports (3 races each @ 30 laps - 270 total for all classes). Don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Also of interest are the updated class average qualifying times.
Before closing off this last report for the year, I'd like to thank all of you who make FRC what it is. As I mentioned to Peter via email last week, if it weren't for all you guys who support FRC by your enthusiasm and dedication, it would mean very little to me. Its no fun racing with yourself. You guys lift my interest and enjoyment of the hobby and that's what keeps me going.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon