Peter was the first to arrive at our inaugural 2022 event and he brought along Kent who recently got into slot cars with his sons, running a Carrera digital setup. I've known Kent for a long time and he'd dropped in one day soon after the beginning of the pandemic to chat about getting a track built. During the ensuing time he's created a really nice track in his garage, complete with scenery, pits, spectator stands and fencing (some of it uniquely created with his 3D printer) and his family have been thoroughly enjoying their racing. Check out these pics he'd sent me in late 2020.
Track layout:
If you look closely in this one, you'll notice the transparent perspex track borders around the table:
The scenery so far is made in modular sections. Here's one:
Pits and grandstand during the day:
and night:
First half of Manzanilla Stretch before locating it on track table:
Poui Tree corner:
Completed Manzanilla Stretch:
Both he and Peter couldn't stay long, but Kent did manage to get in some laps on the FRC track which he appeared to very much enjoy, despite it being with magless cars. He described the experience as more realistic than using magnets and did well, never de-slotting during his driving.
After they left, the four remaining drivers - Steve, Keith, O'Brie and myself did quite a lot of driving, testing many cars before having just a single GT race. I'd had an issue getting the race management software going and we had run short of time for single-car qualifying, so we rolled the dice for grid positions for a single 49-lap race. That odd, long number of laps was also because of not having access to changing the PowerBase lap settings through the software. How it showed 49 laps as the race length is a bit of a mystery.
A look at the crowded paddock area. These are mostly just my cars. There were also many more cars belonging to Steve and O'Brie on the two trackside tables:
The results
GT rolled-dice grid: Steve's Lotus Elise on pole, followed by Keith's BMW M1, O'Brie's Porsche 997 and my Porsche 911R:
(How this is computed: https://www.frcforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=393)
Congratulations to the winners.
Next event's classes: To be announced, but will be the usual non-magnet cars across all eligible classes. I may in advance stipulate a few specific classes which we'll qualify and race.
Don't forget to see the updated overall fastest times and the fastest no-magnet times by driver and class to know what the benchmarks are for your cars. Older stats can be found in the Archive area of the forum.
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
thanks guys for a great evening and yes I have a lot of work to do to even keep up with Steve’s stable of cars! Already looking forward to next meeting.