A great turnout of eleven drivers (including FRC first-timer Nigel) showed up for our rally stages, Slot.It Challenge and Formula 1 races. All but one of these participated in the rally, which saw very close competition right through the field. This was particularly so where two or more drivers drove the same car. The top three in the first stage were Steve, Ramesh and O'Brie. For the second stage it was Ramesh, Steve and O'Brie and to stir the mix, for the third it was Ramesh, Steve and Luke, with O'Brie a close fourth. In the end it was too close to call a winner until the computer had done the number-crunching. What was outstanding though, was an amazing rally fastest lap time and new rally lap record set by Luke, with a 7.017 sec lap!
The Slot.It Challenge cars were very closely matched, the first five qualifiers being separated by just 0.0323 sec. There again Luke shone, driving Ramesh's Nissan R90CK to two victories.
Like Slot.It Challenge, the top five F1 cars were very close, being separated by just 0.385 sec, although the top two finishers in each race remained the same. Keith did a stellar job driving O'Brie's newly rebuilt McLaren, taking two third places in the class.
Because of the larger driver turnout and despite trying to get things going quickly, we still ran pretty late, finishing just after 1:00 AM.
The results
The rally competitors:
One of overall rally winner Steve's runs (video courtesy Luke T):
Amazing to think that this car has no magnets!
Slot.It Challenge drivers. L to R are Anthony, Ramesh, O'Brie, Steve, Luke and I (wearing a belt for my injured back).:
Slot.It Challenge starting grid: My Nissan R89C, Ramesh's Nissan R90CK driven by Luke, Steve's R89C, O'Brie's Mazda 787, Ramesh's R89C and Anthony's Audi R8C:
Formula 1 starting grid: Ramesh's Williams, my McLaren, Steve's Dallara, Luke's Renault (driven by Fernando Alonso
), O'Brie's McLaren driven by Keith A and my McLaren driven by Anthony:
Steve's Dallara flies past Anthony's wrecked McLaren at Fosters corner:
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Class grouping C: Modified Production (MP), Restricted GT (RGT), Restricted LMP (RLMP).
Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest times by driver and class for 2018 to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated fastest times for 2018.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon