We had some very close qualifying, rally and racing action at last night's FRC event for our Rally Car (RC), Slot.It Challenge (SC) and Formula 1 (F1) classes. As usual, we started with three rally stages and had eight competitors taking part in the action with a range of seven different car models. We ran a single 60-lap race each for SC and F1. On one of his rare appearances at FRC these days, Luke B showed his usual top-class, dominant form. However, he did leave something for the others by not getting pole in either SC or F1.
Early in the night, my hopes for a rally victory dwindled when the repaired guide flag on my Alpine again succumbed to the strain of hard laps during practice. Although not everyone had winning potential, there was close competition going down through the stage times. A new lap record was set in SC qualifying when my Nissan R89C just pipped Ramesh's Nissan R90CK by fifteen-hundredths of a second to take pole! The SC race was close and fast, however Ramesh had problems and ended up retiring with a broken guide flag wire while running strong. F1 saw Arden put down a blistering time in his McLaren to take pole. The F1 race was even closer than SC, with groups of cars doing lap after lap bunched together in both lanes. This came to a head in the last few laps when all six cars were running in a quick-lapping group.
We had some issues confirming all the final places in the races, as some cars most likely lost a lap or two when track kill-switches were used. We need to come up with a solution to this so that we have reliable lap recording and results. Otherwise, it was a night of slot car fun for everyone.
The results
The rally competitors:
Slot.It Challenge starting grid - My Nissan R89C, Ramesh's Nissan R90CK, Arden's R89C, Luke B's R89C, Steve's Toyota 88C and O'Brie's Mazda 787:
Ramesh's yellow R90CK ahead of O'Brie's 787 and Luke B's R89C:
Four-car pile-up at the hairpin entry - Arden's R89C, O'Brie's 787, Luke B's R89C and my similar car alongside him. Ramesh's R90CK is safely behind, about to pass under the Dunlop bridge:
Formula 1 starting grid - Arden's McLaren, Luke B's McLaren, my McLaren, Ramesh's Williams, O'Brie's McLaren and Steve's Dallara:
Big wreck at the top of the back straight - my McLaren and Ramesh's Williams lie on the outer edge of the track while Steve's Dallara and Luke B's McLaren block the road:
(How this is computed: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=393)
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 2019 to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated fastest times for 2019. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
