Race 4 & 5: Fia GT, Short report. Options

[tDI_Fahrer]

No pics available. Camera was not around.

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Race 4: Date 16-02-06

For this race we had an outsider. Someone who saw the pictures of our races here on slotforum and he was very interested. Anthony never slotted before, but the microbe had already bitten him and he expects a Carrera track from Ebay now... I quickly prepared a Corvette C5R body for him that was lying around as testbody for new glues, paints, clearcoats and other stuff. The car was well prepared though... with me behind the wheel it did several laps in the warm up in about 6.0! It was immediately the quickest Vette of the grid. Anthony took the Vette around the track and learned the technique and the track. He was of course slower than everybody else. But we immediately saw that he had the feeling for slotting.

Qualification times:

Q-Time=>Driver: Car =>Pts

6.066=> Gunther: Ferrari 575 => 3
6.237=> Bram: Corvette C5-R => 2
6.300=> Koen: Panoz Esperante => 1
6.450=> Slim: Corvette C5-R
7.742=> Anthony: Corvette C5-R


Too bad for Anthony he hasn’t witnessed a very exciting race, the results were almost known at a third of the race. The Giesse Ferrari took the lead from the first laps… and never gave it away anymore although the Williams Vette (Bram) sat very close behind its tail. Slim in the Goodwrech Vette #64 had a bad start and had only 23 laps in the first heat due to a little technical problem.. After that first manche the #64 Vette (Slim) started to be really competitive and showed some close battles with the Williams Corvette and the Giesse Ferrari. The times were very evenly matched and Slim did beat the Ferrari in heat 2! Too bad the car missed its start, or this could have been the closest race in our short FIA GT history. Anthony in the Vette was groping his own and his cars limits and drove better lap by lap. It was clear the newbie enjoyed himself and would be very competitive if he races some more.

Although Koen’s Panoz was the quickest FIA GT car, he couldn’t keep up with the three leaders. Thanks to Slims bad start the Panoz had only a three lap arrears on the #64 Corvette. Koen had trouble keeping the car tight on the track and constantly lost time drifting, wich made it very hard to pass him too. The positions stayed this way till the end of the race. One thing worth mentioning is Anthony that really got the feeling now. He frequently did laps in 6.7 which isn’t bad at all on this track if you just start slotting!

Final Table:

Laps =>Name => Q. Points => Race points => Total pts
405 => Gunther => 3 => 10 => 13
381 => Bram => 2 => 8 => 10
358 => Slim => 0 => 6 => 6
327 => Koen => 1 => 4 => 5
255 => Anthony => 0 => 3 => 3


After the race I got behind the wheel of the Panoz. That car looked very quick in Koens hands but the times didn’t prove that. We were curious what the times the car would do in someone else’s hands. It immediately became clear that the car had a huge potential. After 20-30 laps the car went under 6.0 for the first time. The magical barrier was broken! A few laps later it seemed the car could do 6.0’s very comfortable and it did 5.9’s if it was pushed only a little harder. The ultimate lap was 5.916! In my opinion this car should be the FIA GT car to beat… race after race…

We all had a nice experience with Anthony. It’s a respectful and very sportive driver. He will no doubt get more invitations for our competition.


Race 5: Date 20-02-06

This time it was hectic all over again… There were hard crashes from the the first laps wich frustrated and demotivated several drivers.

Qualification times:

Q-Time=>Driver: Car =>Pts

6.053 => Gunther: Ferrari 575 => 3
6.098 => Jo: Ferrari 575 => 2
6.180 => Bram: Corvette C5-R => 1
6.398 => Slim: Corvette C5-R
6.457 => Ben: Porsche 993 GT2

The Giesse Ferrari took the pole but the JMB Ferrari (Jo) took the lead, at a third of the race Jo had two laps advantage. On his way taking the leaders position he also took out the Williams Corvette (Bram). The Vette hit the wall very hard and lost its venturi and spoilers. From that moment on the Vette driver could’t do anything more than do his laps far behind the others, he already lost 10 of more laps in the first heat. Due to frustration, lack of concentration and pushing to hard Bram raced some lousy first three stints in which he lost even more laps to the leaders. Slims Corvette did well and immediately took the third place and hold it till the end. Ben had to adjust again and so he didn’t have a superstart. The battle for the lead was intense. After a few manches I took back the two laps arrears and even got in front by one lap. Two or three heats later my Ferrari motor came loose and I lost 5 or 6 laps… on Jo. It was a hard battle… but the Giesse Ferrari was slightly faster. Lap by lap I took some time back. With the number of heats to go I could have passed the other Ferrari again. But at the moment I was three laps behind the 575… he gave up the race due to personal problems with other drivers, so he gave me the victory on a golden plate. I would rather have to fight him till the last lap and become second a meter behind him than winning this way… Because that is what racing is all about.

Too bad this had to happen...



Final Table:

Laps =>Name => Q. Points => Race points => Total pts
214 => Gunther => 3 => 10 => 13
207 => Slim => 0 => 8 => 8
198 => Bram => 1 => 6 => 7
195 => Ben => 0 => 4 => 4

DNF => Jo => 2 => 0 => 2




Greetings from Petit Spa,

News about the new 1/24 race classes will be available soon.



G.

[slot king]

Looks like the corvettes did well this time.

[AmoredBones]

Good for Corvettes, sounded like fun.

Cheers Nick

[snowmanf]

with beer at those prices it wouldn't matter how long the track is

AB, is that coach headed for Ghent? haha