Dudley Slot Car Club
February 28th 2011
Kevin arrived for the first time this year and Brian returned from holiday to replace Martin who was away with work to make 7 again for the nights racing.
Class 1—1/32nd Saloon
With each driver getting two heats, Graham top qualified with a 29.30. Chris T was second with a 28.57, rounding out the A final. Mark qualified 3rd using a falcon in front of Malcolm's GP12. Brian qualified 5th with Chris A 6th. Kevin didn't bring his 1/32nd car so didn't race.
The C Final was a close race, with Brian slowly pulling away from Chris A. Brian eventually beat Chris A by just over a lap, Brian went onto record 26.43 to move up to yellow in the B. The B Final saw Mark and Malcolm run side by side for the whole race. Brian's GP12 was now getting low on tires and he retired on 23 laps. Malcolm's Gp12 proved to much for Mark's Falcon, winning by half a lap to take white in the A. Chris T was also suffering from low tire syndrome on his GP12, so swapped to his falcon for the final. Graham and Chris T had a ding dong battle for 3 minutes with each driver only having one off, both on the same lap. Graham finished on 29.49, but Chris's falcon rolled up to his car when the power went off to record 29.48 (1 part behind) Malcolm struggled to match the lead pair to record 26.
Class 2—1/24th Saloon
Chris T top qualified with 10.81. Mark for one didn't have an off in qualifying to record his first 10 of the year and qualify 2nd with 10.53. Graham recorded 10.47 the only other person to record 10 laps. Malcolm was on pace to beat Graham and Mark, but had an off to record 9.73. Brian also followed Malcolm's example and had an off to record 9.45. Chris A had a nightmare run to record 8.01 with countless offs, think he was getting them all out of the way before the race started! Kevin qualified but didn't have time to stop and complete his final.
With 7 drivers we opted to have 2 groups of 2, and 1 group of 3. With Kevin leaving early, this changed to 3 groups of 2, because we weren't sure how to change the system! Chris A and Brian shared the first group with Brian having a nightmare run on red to record only 22 laps. Chris A only managed 29 on white, but was above his average of 8 per min from qualifying. Chris recorded another 29 on red to open out his advantage to Brian to 8 laps. Chris A then record his best run of the night on blue of 31 laps to take his total score to 90 laps. Brian had enough after 17 laps on yellow with mechanical problems to retire on 68 laps. Chris A recorded 30 in his last run on blue to set the benchmark of 120 laps. Graham and Malcolm were up next and both drivers after the first run were on target of Chris A score with 31 and 30 respectively. Malcolm then only recorded 29 on yellow to drop below the 120 pace set by Chris. Graham recoded a big 30 on Red to sit on 62 laps at half way. Malcolm struggled on white and red to only 28's in both to finish 3 laps down on Chris A's score. Graham picked up the pace to finish with 31.94 on yellow to record 125.08, 4 1/2 laps up on Chris A score. Mark couldn't match his qualifying time and only recorded a big 28 on blue after a series of offs. Chris set the pace by recording 32.37 on white, the best run all night. Both drivers recorded 31's in there next run, so Chris was predicted to win by a couple of laps. Mark was about 1/4lap down on Chris A's total for 3rd. the second half saw Chris T record another two 31+ scores to finish 2 1/2 laps clear of his dad. Mark recorded a big 29 on white to set up a last run showdown to see if he could catch Chris A's score on red. the computer prediction was jumping between the two drivers every time Mark crossed the line. With 15 seconds to go Mark came off to give Chris A 3rd place by 1/3 lap.
Graham records his 3rd win in the first class, (this time not in F1) and Chris T makes it back to back wins in the segmented. Hopefully dave is back next week after his holiday!
*represents start lane