Morning all
Report on Modified Sports GT Class from last Thursday 17th March.
This was the first time this class had been run in earnest, although most people had given some of their cars a bit of a run-out in last week's Open fun class, with my NSR Mosler holding the unofficial outright benchmarks of 5.119 (fastest lap) and 20 laps in a heat, from last week.
Steve had also hit 20 laps in this week's earlier F1 class, so this pointed to perhaps even better performances from the cars in this Modified class, which also allows in the more potent makes of RTR cars: Avant, Racer, Racer Sideways, Slot-it, MB-Slot, Scaleauto, NSR, Sloting-plus, Ninco Pro and MSC on top of all other makes like Scalextric and Ninco, SCX etc permitted in the limited mods classes. Modifications permitted are free choice of wheels and axles.
This class had a number of NSR and Slot-it cars, a couple of MB-Slot and I thought I saw an Avant at one point in practice, plus a couple of Racer Sideways and various Scalextric cars and other brands.
As expected, the magic 20 lap barrier was well and truly broken by several drivers, Andy White managing this in lane 4, Brian Harrison in lanes 3 and 4, Dave Capelen in lanes 2, 3 and 4 and Steve Morrow in all 4 lanes!
At the bottom of the table, Geoff Harrison
just pipped Pete Lawther for 10th (63.27 v 63.10), Dave Kneale was a steady 9th just behind Mike Buss, who had problems in Lane 4 and only clocked 11 laps, otherwise he would have been pushing for 4th place. Ray Beattie finished on a respectable 68 and Mike Dove managed to take 5th in his MB Slot Ferrari by half a lap from Chris Angold (72.81 v 72.31). Andy White had a really good series and clocked 75 laps for 4th, but couldn't hang onto Brian Harrison's quick car in 3rd, whose 2x19 and 2x20 gave him 78.
However, it was Steve Morrow's super-consistency that saw him clock 20/21/20/20 for 81 laps, despite describing driving his MB Slot Ferrari as like having an on/off switch....
It certainly wasn't obvious to me as a spectator and was a testament to his driving skills. Unfortunately for Steve, that was only good enough for 2nd, as Dave Capelen overcame a crash-strewn first heat of 19 laps to clock 22/21/22 for the last 3 heats to total 84 laps, also lowering the outright lap record from last week's Open Class with his NSR Mosler from 5.119 to 5.009, then 4.989, then to 4.954 in the last heat, on the outside lane.
Results as follows:
Position.....Racers....Lane1.Lane2.Lane 3.Lane 4.Total....Avg......F/laps
1....Dave Capelen.......19.......22.......21.......22......84.......21............4.954
2....Steve Morrow.......20.......21.......20.......20......81.......20.25
3....Brian Harrison......19.......19........20.......20......78.......19.5
4....Andy White..........19.......18........18.......20......75.......18.75
5....Mike Dove............18.......18........18.......18......72.81..18.2025
6....Chris Angold........17.......19........17.......19......72.31..18.0775....5.338
7....Ray Beattie..........16.......18........17.......17......68.......17
8....Mike Buss.............18.......19........19......11.......67......16.75.......5.377
9....Dave Kneale.........16.......15........17......17.......65......16.25
10..Geoff Harrison......15.......17........15......16.......63.27..15.8175
11..Pete Lawther.......14........17.......16......16.......63.10...15.775
Record lap: 4.954 sec
Record laps in a heat: 22
Record total laps: 84
Unfortunately, the printouts don't show everyone's fastest laps, so the three I've quoted above are just those I happened to spot on the screen, just after the heats finished.
For future weeks I will try and remember to take some photos, plus it would be useful if we had the data for what cars everyone runs in each class.
As Steve mentioned in an earlier post, I think 23 laps in a heat is a possibility with the Mosler, with no crashes, as I finished on 22.95 in the last heat....
....but 24 laps would require each one to be at 5 secs flat, which I think is unachievable with my current car set-up and old tyres.
Another really good night's racing , with some very close dices, well done everyone.
I'm now away on holiday for a couple of weeks, but I hope there's some more great racing in my absence.
See you all on 7th April.
Cheers
Dave