The 2009 APC.

[Mikey B]

Hello fellow Model Car Racers.

Even though I'm two weeks late, I would like to give my feedback from the 2009 APC which was held at Mobile Raceways.

I had a great weekend of racing and just general mixing with everyone. Although after a bit of discussion with some other racers, we were a bit dissapointed with some things. I'll go class by class that I entered, so 1/32 GT's and JGT isn't included.

1970's Can-Am Sports Cars
Tech: Why was it in that small room where only the officials could see what's going on? For all we know, they could have been doing anything to the cars, like adding weight, loosening wheels, etc. Although I don't think that either Peter Dimmers or Werner would do anything like that, you never know.
Qualifying: It was said that NOBODY was allowed to clean their tyres. So what did some people do? Yep, they cleaned their tyres. There has to be some kind of penalty for that, whether it's not qualifying, or laps taken off. I don't know.
Racing: From What I can recall it all went smoothly.


Group C
Tech: Again it was in the same room.
On the tech sheet that the team 'boss' filled out before racing it said "The team boss was to assemble the body back onto the car" (maybe not in those words, but you get the drift.) but that didn't happen. When I qualified the tyres were rubbing on the body, hmmm, wasn't doing that before. Sure enough the body hadn't been put back on the car properly, the same as Rob Ferris and Geoff Little's car. So I spoke to them and then showed Werner the form where it says the 'boss' puts the body back on the car.
Qualifying:Because of the body incident in qualifying I qualified a 7.008 (I think) but who says I wouldn't have done a 6.5 and TQ'ed? Same as Rob and Geoff.


Formula 1:
Motor Change:Why should we have our cars taken into a room where nobody can see how they are being tech'ed, but when we have to change a motor it has to be seen by everyone? What are we going to do? Go to our box, engrave "APC #4" or whatever was on that motor into a Cheetah II, go over it in red arm dye without anybody noticing?
Then to make it even worse, we don't get any practice time with that motor? That was stupid.
Qualifying/Racing: All went well.


Overall:There needs to be ONE person in charge so that if there are any questions (technical, rules, racing) they can be answered on the spot, not 3 or 4 race directors that don't know the answer.
That ONE person needs to keep everybody 'in the loop'. Let them know what's going on, when the next race is, if tech is done, who won the race.

And finally my main point, which doesn't have much to do with the APC, but more with Plafit Model Car Racing in general.
What is the point in spending $50+ for a model kit, $15+ for paint, $10+ for ddecals and even more money for extra add-ons when you don't get anything for it. The cars anren't even judged on their looks in Group C. Even in Wing Car racing there in Concours D'Elegance and they look nothing like real cars.

You would think that there would even be a pick of the best looking car with or without a trophy. What is the real point in spending that amount of money on the kit etc., when there is no Concours? You could get the worst looking car with scratches, broken pieces, and paint it all black and get the same thing!!!

Hopefully I didn't offend anybody.
Mike.