We finally seem to have dry season weather, at least that's how dry it was for this event, which is always good news for the open garage-based FRC circuit. In addition to the standard preparation work that's done every event, I set up the computer and screen for our recently tested race management software. I managed to get everything done and yet no one had arrived and I was beginning to wonder whether anyone was coming when drivers finally started to trickle in later than usual.
First to arrive was O'Brie (as usual) and he helped me clean the track rails and re-apply a coating of Inox. Eventually we had a total of eight drivers ready to do battle in the scheduled classes, Porsche Cup and F1 (which replaced Historic Saloon for this event at the request of current F1 champ Aaron).
I had re-trued the Porsche rear tyres and, on testing them all, found a definite roadholding improvement with the cars being very nice to drive. So it looked like the six races for the class would be very competitive, especially as drivers would move on to a different car each race. We rolled a dice to select cars for qualifying which was done in two groups of four, with the fastest six lining up for the first race and the last two cycling out as usual. Steve managed to capture pole in the class however all eight cars were separated by just 0.648 sec!
There were exactly six cars - a full grid - for the three F1 races and qualifying was done one car at a time over three flying laps. I totally messed up by deslotting on my first flying lap and thus qualified last, a position I'd get accustomed to in the races (ever heard of persistent terminal understeer in a slot car?). Luke on the other hand showed he meant business by taking pole in his Alonso Renault and he couldn't hide his glee.
The Porsche Cup races were closely competed as expected with the last two finishers in each race stepping out for standby drivers to take over. Then things got more difficult when one Porsche damaged its chip and had to be retired. Thereafter the last three drivers in each race were cycling out so everything became pretty mixed up so far as trying to figure out who was leading on points. Amongst all of this O'Brie had to leave, damaging his championship chances which were looking pretty good till then. In the end, aside from first place, the points were extremely close - 19, 17, 17, 17, 17, 16, 10.
They say that you don't have to win races to win a championship, but you do need to finish high up consistently. That's how it was for the new FRC F1 champion. The deposed champ Aaron put up a good fight but wasn't good enough on the night to hold onto his crown. While I was consistently finishing at the back, Laird did a move from last place in one race to first in the following race. No one was looking for that. All in all F1 was very competitive, with a different winner in each race and very close point differences (aside from last place!). In fact the single qualifying point made the difference between a tie and a definite champion.
As has been the case several times recently, we fired-up the BBQ and enjoyed some magnificent ribs supplied by Alex, as well as chicken and various sausages. Several drivers helped "burn the meat" and everyone had a great time racing and munching. The following day being a holiday, we went pretty late and I personally didn't hit the pillow till 2:00 AM.
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: Historic Saloon - 3 races @ 30 laps, Restricted GT- 3 races @ 30 laps, Slot.It Challenge - 3 races @ 30 laps (270 total laps for all classes). Historic Saloon will replace F1 for this next event. 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.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
& some claims, Bahrain safer than London 