Sadly perhaps, no one else has bothered reporting on this,..(on this forum atleast) and after a number of people complaining that I had not been writing any reports of late, (arguably a bit difficult seeing as I have Not attended the actual races,..lol), thought I should remedy the situation, especially as the actual numbers of racers enjoying retro has increased, Considerably !!
Previously, we have had the likes of Cody, Wayne B, Lindsay and Johnny Fav' attending, to swell the field and although they did Not race last night, we still had 2 x Full fields of racers for the CanAm races and 12 x F1's.
It was also really Great to see (as mentioned), some Older racers from the past now seemingly enjoying some great racing in Retro, but also to see some New and quite Young New racers enjoying this great class and as is often the case, some of these new 'younguns', are Fast !! but as is also often the case,..also somewhat 'excitable',..well judging from the Karnage with a Kapital K evident in the first CanAm race !!,..lol
I guess as I had not been doing much racing at all this year, (in Any class), I had also been a bit slack regarding prepping of my cars.
I have still yet to finish painting either of the 2 x New F1 bodies and even having painted 2 x New CanAm bodies, I have still Yet to actually complete trimming and mounting them, sigh,... mind you I did Finally finish building my modified JK 'Kit' car,..started quite some time ago. It still needs some work, but actually 'Feels' really nice to drive, but is currently fitted with my Old CanAm motor, so is somewhat down on power and in testing, was a few 10th's slower than my Old Faithful chassis, which had a New motor fitted, (although Again, Not such a Great motor), as compared to the rest of the field last night, was noticeably down on Outright Speed. I guess as well, I probably could/Should have invested in some New rear tyres, for Both CanAm and F1, but trying to watch the finances, had to rely on some good old 'Zip Grip 2' treatment prior to racing, which seemed to have done an OK job rejuvenating the rubber to acceptable levels,....anyway,..onto the actual racing.
CanAm Heat 1.
As mentioned above, this race had a mixture of some newer Older racers from the past and some excitable young newcomers and certainly provided for some exciting and Very active racing and certainly kept us Older marshalls 'On Our Toes' trying to keep up with all the 'Action'.
Whilst definitely 'Hectic', this race was quite a close fought event, between Andrew Shah, Leigh and Steph', with Bill Wall also 'in the mix' for a podium spot.
Andrew and Leigh, spent the early brackets constantly swapping 1st and 2nd and with Steph starting on Purple and Black, it was not until about midway, that Steph' and Bill began sorting out 3rd and 4th, until Steph' finally moved ahead and took 1st place by the 6th bracket, whilst Andrew and Leigh continued to 'tussle' over 2nd and 3rd.
Older racer and Retro Newcomer Neil Bolton, seemed happy to finally have his New DiFalco controller and was having his own fun, slightly further down the order, along with Thomas and Glenn Hazell, (who we haven't seen for a while),..in fact I was somewhat surprised to see what was obviously one of my cars/bodies zooming around and wondering what was happening, until I realised it was the car I had built for Glenn some time ago,...with probably our youngest Retro Racer, young Zander Watson, seeming to enjoy himself bringing up the rear. He Can be quite Fast, but his exuberance invariably gets the better of him, but will I am sure get better with both More experience and obviously,..Age.
Whilst undoubtedly a very Messy 'Crash Fest' race, the three at the front really were virtually All Over Each Other, with the final outcome incredibly close! Steph' finally coming out on top over the hard fighting Leigh and another younger Retro convert Andrew Shah.
The final outcome being;
1st Steph' 159 laps
2nd Leigh 159 laps
3rd Andrew 158 laps
4th Bill 143 laps
5th Thomas 137 laps
6th Glenn 134 laps
7th Neil 129 laps
8th Zander 120 laps
CanAm Heat 2.
Fortunately,..this was actually an incredibly 'Clean, Close and Very Fast' race, I guess as could be expected from the entrants and Everyone seemed to have a damn fast car,..well atleast it seemed that way to myself, as even with a new motor fitted to replace the last New motor I used, (which was also not up to scratch), so I am definitely going to have to invest in a couple more New Cheetah motors, if I am to be as competitive as I would like to be for the series, let alone the upcoming Geohegan Race.
I got off to as good a start as one could hope for, leading into the first few corners along with Charles, but being on Purple, with a slightly slower car, soon had me being passed by a few of the faster cars on better lanes and although still in 5th, I dropped to 8th after only a merely satisfactory run of 19 laps on Black.
Mark and Darryll swapped the top 2 spots in the first couple of brackets, with Brad getting into the 'Mix' along with Charles, (who had a very quick car), once he got into his stride on Yellow, after starting on Black.
Mark held onto 1st for most of the race, with Charles rarely more than 1 or 2 laps behind from the 3rd bracket onwards, with by that stage Darryll and Brad doing the same, often on the same lap tussling over 3rd and 4th, until after driving as hard as I could, finally managing to make it upto 3rd by the 6th bracket.
Justin, Gregg T, Paul and Justin were also having their own very close 'dice', race long, only slightly down on the leaders, also often all being within a lap or two of each other.
Having only de-slotted once, I was quite pleased with my driving and even managed a 23 on Green to JUST hold onto 3rd from Darryll, going into the last bracket and even though The Off that Mark had (which cost him the Lead), 'Nailed' Me, I doubt it would really have allowed me to Keep 3rd, had it Not happened, as Darryll managed to turn a 24 in the last bracket to my 22, so from a lap up, I became a lap down, with GreggT very close behind.
All in all, a Really quite Fantastic race, with Very few de-slots by anyone race long and really great pace by everyone, with the outcome realistically very close across the Whole field,..basically,..thoroughly enjoyable !!
The final outcome;
1st Charles 175 laps
2nd Mark 174 laps
3rd Darryll 172 laps
4th Stoo 171 laps
5th Gregg 170 laps
6th Brad 169 laps
7th Paul 167 laps
8th Justin 167 laps
F1's.
With 12 starters, we had 2 x races of 6
Heat 1, had Justin, Leigh, Bill, Glenn, Gregg and Steph and was in some ways relatively close for the lower places and podium spots, as basically, Justin 'Coloured himself GONE' and disappeared into the distance,..leaving Steph' and Leigh to eventually tussle race long over 2nd and 3rd, with Gregg seeming to have a relatively Lonely race managing to Hold 4th Race long, with Glenn and Bill, having their own close race for the lower positions, constantly swapping positions race long.
The Outcome;
1st Justin 171 laps
2nd Steph' 164 laps
3rd Leigh 160 laps
4th Gregg 154 laps
5th Glenn 147 laps
6th Bill 146 laps
Heat 2, had Paul, Darryll, Brad, Mark, Stoo and Charles and was in fact another fine drive by Charles, managing to put in some incredibly consistent lap totals, with 6 brackets of 22 laps, along with a 20 and 21, to put himself a few laps clear after the first couple of brackets from Brad who had a Very quick car and managed to trail Mark for the Whole race, the two of them having seemingly cemented themselves into their relative finishing positions early on,..leaving Darryll, Paul and Myself to fight over the remaining 'Minor Placings'.
My car was as quick as usual, but with (as mentioned earlier), could have benefitted from some New rear rubber and had an annoyingly slightly rough gear mesh, which took me a while to 'Get Right', (which then allowed it to perform far better), but unfortunately had a slight 'incident', Just clipping Brad's deslotted car late in the 1st bracket, which broke the front 'Plumber' connection on one of the side pans, which meant I missed a few laps of the 2nd bracket after a 'Quick-Fix' with some Body Tape to stop it from Drooping onto the Track and I only managed to turn 14 laps !!,..Doh !!,...So after being over 10 laps down, I was actually quite pleased with my driving and the speed of my car as the race progressed and managed to male up quite a few laps, bringing me to within a lap of Darryll and only a couple of laps behind Paul.
Mind you, it was a Very good race and I thoroughly enjoyed myself even If I finished last in the Heat. Charles drove very well, with what has Always been a rather effective chassis, eventually finishing 3 laps up on what was in reality, a very close race between the rest of us.
The Outcome;
1st Charles 173 laps
2nd Mark 170 laps
3rd Brad 169 laps
4th Paul 167 laps
5th Darryll 165 laps
6th Stoo 164 laps
Once again,..as is Always the case with Retro, just Another Great evenings racing of a Really Great Fun and affordable class and with 16 starters for CanAm and 12 for F1, a seemingly Very Popular class as well !!
As always, thanks Must go to James for providing us with Another truly enjoyable evenings racing.
I finally got that F1 sorted again and wasn't hanging about.