First up;
Mini-Z
Qualifying.
I guess it has to mentioned, that both Troy and Kim were 'On the Money' Pace wise. Troy managing to set the Top Time, but it sure was close.
TQ' times by Troy being;
6.260, 6.349 and 6.351, with Kim's times being 6.282, 6.305 and 6.307
Unfortunately, at the moment, I Don't have All the details of the Mini-Z class races.
Will 'Update' with the details when I have them at hand.
Interestingly though and unbeknown to myself, Another rather Serious Competition was happening at the Same time as the Mini-Z class was running.
Having taken the opportunity to travel to the track on the Sat' evening with Wayne B and knowing that he wanted to Get Away soon after the end of proceedings on the Sunday, I decided to travel down by myself.
Perhaps after my Rip Van Winkel performance earlier in the year at the APC, when I managed to Sleep in severely and Miss both the 1/32 Modern GT and 1/24th CanAm/Historic classes.
I was only intending to race in the Group C class and whilst it would have been OK to have seen the Mini-Z racing, I really didn't Need to be there and so took my time to arrive 'In Plenty of Time' for the start of the Group C races,...BUT,...It seems as mentioned a Competition was undertaken by those already at the track,..to 'Pick' the Exact time of My arrival and it would seem some serious Dollars became involved.
Not everyone had taken up a chance at the 'Odds', but amazingly, Troy turned out to be the Winner by guessing the Closest to what time I did eventually arrive and a rather serious amount of Money was seen to change hands !!!,..
It IS Good that I can still provide you all with a degree of enjoyment,..even when I am Not there !!!,..
but I Must say I was somewhat disappointed by those that chose the 'No Show' option in the Odds and am Happy that you Lost your Bundles !!!,.. Anyway,..Back to the Racing and on to what was for me, 'The Main Event',..
Group C
Having had a 'bit of a Hiccup' regarding my previous cars' legality leading up to this event, I was to be honest approaching this class rather seriously. Having spent the week prior 'Converting' My car and Building a car for Mark Fox from our SLPJ's, I decided to go down the virtually 'Standard' 1700 route instead of going with the 'seemingly' popular GCK conversion Kit route.
With my SLPJ offering extremely fine handling, I took the time to try and 'Replicate' the overall weight Balance and Set Up of the SLPJ as similarly as possible with the Pure 1700 versions and after testing Mark's New car against my SLPJ version during the week, was feeling relatively confident that I had managed to Come extremely Close in getting the cars to handle almost as well.
I knew Mark was capable of doing a good job with his car and as mentioned, I was certainly approaching this race with 'Determination'.
Perhaps due to expressing my desire to Win in this class to Troy and with My Win in the 1/24th CanAm/Historics class ruining Troy's 'Hat-Trick' of victories, Troy had Wayne build him a Brand New car for this event overnight, which must have been quite an effort for Wayne, as he apparently didn't finish until the Very Wee hours of Sunday morning. This New car along with an absolute 'Killer' motor, put Troy in a Very Good position to Challenge myself and Fox for the Victory.
Qualifying.
Having (as I said), already tested the Performance of both Mark's car and mine, I knew we were comfortably Faster than Most of the field and so was rather Shocked when Troy put in a 'brace' of Very fast Qualifying laps, well in to the times I knew my car could do.
Troy chose White to Qualify on and if for No other reason than a direct comparison, I also ran on White for My run.
It was Close,..but for me there was No Cigar, as Troy Did manage to TQ' on the day,..BUT,.... Not by That Much, although our times were generally about 2/10ths faster than the rest of the field.
Troy's Best 3 lap times being; 5.534, 5.551 and 5.581 against 5.588, 5.595 and 5.602 set by myself.
Interestingly, Mark Fox also managed to be 3rd fastest qualifier, with His New 'converted' SLPJ !700, which was for myself somewhat satisfying.
So from qualifying, we knew it Was going to be a Fast and Hard race.
We had 10 starters for Group C, so had once again 2 x heats.
Heat A.
Here we had Troy, Mark, Bevin, Jimmy and Myself taking the start, which is certainly a Fast and consistently good bunch of drivers, which in theory should provide for some really great racing and so it most definitely was!
Troy, Mark and myself all started next to each other and with Troy on Red and myself on White, I figured I could atleast try and give Troy a hard Run. From the start, Troy and I took off closely together, the two of us Never more than a few Feet or Inches apart for the Whole bracket.
I thought I could perhaps slightly 'rattle' Troy, by Staying Super Close and perhaps Could have 'Forced' the issue, but was wary of taking him out with a 'Desperate' move. Unfortunately, this Did eventually happen, but was Not and intentional Move as such, just a suprising arrival into the same piece of track, which caused me to take us both out rather harmlessly around the top of the Triangle,..Oops!,..Sorry about that Troy.
This left Mark in the lead temporarily and with the marshal getting us both back on Very quickly together, Troy and I Really Motored to eventually catch Mark and at the end of the 1st bracket had all three of us within a few inches of each other.
It has to be said the 'Pace' was amazing really, Our two cars were really So evenly matched that for a number of brackets neither of us could make any time on each other, often finishing in virtually identical distances apart as at the start of the bracket.
Troy really had a very good run and with a Silly unforced De-slot by myself and a slight traffic incident, which allowed Troy to get Two laps on me, we Stayed that way for the entire Race.
It Has to be said that realistically, No one was 'hanging around' in this race, with fantastic lap totals being set by everyone, as could be expected from such a good bunch of drivers, with No one turning less than 29 laps a bracket.
Behind Troy and myself, Mark was doing a great job as well, slowly putting some laps between himself and Jimmy and Bevin, who were running very well and having their Own Super close race.
I Hope the marshals had a good time watching this race, as they certainly had Very little to do during it other than watching, as I think the number of Total de-slots by everyone could have been counted on one hand !! It really was a Fantastic and arguably very enjoyable race.
The outcome proving to be very satisfying, having had such a good race against Troy and especially having mark also finish on the podium with the other car I built making it even more so.
Final placing in Heat 'A';
1st Troy 247 laps
2nd Stoo 245 laps
3rd Mark 239 laps
4th Jimmy 234 laps
5th Bevin 233 laps
Heat 'B'.
This heat had, James, Kim, JJ, Gregg and Jake taking the start, which in theory should have provided for another very good race and so it proved.
After initially not having the same pace as the Top runners in testing and practice, a bit of quick pit work, saw Kim start the race with another typically quick car and with his driving on the day, he quickly established himself in 1st place after the first bracket.
I guess as the race progressed it proved to be ultimately slightly Less clean than Our heat, with a few on track 'Bingles' causing a few desperate Squeals from the various drivers.
Behind Kim, James, Gregg and JJ were regularly swapping positions until about the 4th bracket when the positions On Track became seemingly 'Settled', with the positions across the field remaining the same till the end, with Gregg and James Never being more than a lap apart and JJ slowly edging away from Jake as the race progressed.
Overall, the Total laps in this heat were slightly down from the 'Torrid' pace set in the first heat, but was still a very fine race if but a bit disappointing for some of the racers.
Outcome of Heat 'B';
1st Kim 235 laps
2nd Gregg 231 laps
3rd James 230 laps
4th JJ 211 laps
5th Jake 206 laps
The Final outcome of Both the Heats being;
1st Troy 247 laps
2nd Stoo 245 laps
3rd Mark 239 laps
4th Kim 235 laps
5th Jimmy 234 laps
6th Bevin 233 laps
7th Gregg 231 laps
8th James 230 laps
9th JJ 211 laps
10th Jake 206 laps
Overall, I guess in some ways the outcome of this race was vindication of the Proof that although the SLPJ was a Very effective Car/Chassis, an almost Basic 1700 could be assembled to be Almost identically as effective and as was proven by Troy, So could a GCK converted car.
The differences in Lap Times of my 'converted' 1700's as compared to my SLPJ were merely 100ths and 1,000ths and some of my Quickest times during the race were actually Quicker than my SLPJ had gone during our Local championship races during the Year.
The Only 'Carbon' parts on my car, were a Front Wheel mount Top Brace and Guide Tongue and on Fox's car merely the Guide Tongue, so in reality it really has a Lot more to do with the Basic setup, attention to detail and a Good Weight Balance. Plus,..it really Does Help if you Drive well and Don't come off as well !!,..
All in All, a really Great and extremely enjoyable race,..thanks to all who competed.