A very small group of just four drivers competed in our Mini Challenge and Rally classes for FRC's 142nd event. We rolled a dice to select a single Mini which everyone would use to qualify on an even playing field. Despite there being only four drivers, in order to keep things as fair as possible we decided to do the usual six races where each driver drove each car and this worked out very well. One driver ultimately dominated.
The rally class provided a rude awakening to all but Arden. Earlier in the day he had called me to say that he had an 8-sec rally car and I took it with a large grain of salt since the best single-lap rally times ever recorded were in the 9.2 sec range. Well, it turns out he was under-estimating the car's potential. I drove it in practice and was under 7 sec within a few laps. He's the second person to prepare a rally car exploiting a loophole in the regulations, the first being Luke. The rally class is our only magnet-less class - magnets cannot be added to the cars. But both Luke and Arden circumvented this by employing the use of what is probably the most magnetic motor in slot racing, the MB Slot "Dodo".
Whereas Luke's implementation in his Toyota Corolla with basically standard ground clearance gave mild extra downforce compared with other non-magnet cars in the class, Arden set up his NSR Renault Clio with almost no ground clearance, causing the magnetic effect to be similar to a standard magnet-equipped slot car. This of course, although legal for our Rally class based on the written rules (if not their spirit), placed the car in a class of its own where everyone else was concerned. The outcome of the rally competition was therefore a foregone conclusion.
Arden's Clio brought to mind something that the Brabham F1 team did back in 1978 to get an advantage over the competition, giving their car significantly more downforce than the all the other teams' cars. The Brabham BT46B "Fan Car" employed a loophole in the then F1 regulations whereby they added a gigantic "cooling fan" which was really there to simply suck the car to the ground, much like the Dodo motor does in Arden's Clio. In the case of the Brabham, the car raced just once, winning with Nicky Lauda at the wheel. After that the other teams forced the withdrawal of the car from further competition.
In the end Arden's approach (and Luke's to a lesser extent) goes in a bit of a different direction than was visualised for the class, but hats off to them nonetheless.
The results
Congratulations to the winners.
2013 Overall Class Points Update
Next event's classes: Lambo Series - 6 races @ 25 laps, Restricted GT - 5 races @ 35 laps, Slot.It Challenge - 5 races @ 35 laps. Don't forget to see the updated fastest times for the FRC classes to know what the benchmarks are for your cars, the updated class average qualifying times and the updated 2013 Class Points Standings..
See you on the circuit...
Gordon
& even my (Five 2nd. places & One 3rd. place) racing results was no match for you and your 16 points lead. Your 132 racing skills looked like it was 100% spot-on at this event. I was surprised to see Arden making the podium even though I noticed how much he was running around the table for his car 
maybe it helped when he said, "This last race is mines!" which he won also. 
