May 19, 2012
Round 4 Slot It 70`s Prototype Series
Another hot Saturday at the Austin, Texas speedway as 6 racers showed to match Ferraris against Alfa Romeos. Ary came into this race with a commanding lead of 650 laps and 27 points. His car has been untouchable. Roy and Jim followed with an eye in the rearview mirror on Kevin, Marty and Brian each of whom had been tuning their cars with exquisite care and expertise. Brett and Russell were out but new club member, Brandon, was on hand to marshal and learn the ropes. How would round 4 turn out? Could we make our move on Ary`s dominating lead? Turns out, we had our chance.
Early in the first heat Ary had mechanical trouble and had to pull his car off the track and into the garage costing him about 10 laps after quick repairs. He finished his race with just 63 laps as Kevin the Hammer put the hammer down. Earlier Kevin tore his motor apart to find a broken wire. A little soldering later he found his old speed back and turned consistent fastest laps in the 3.9 range. Marty followed Kevin around the course in heat 4 the entire race ¾ lap behind. Despite both turning 72 laps , Marty uncharacteristically could not quite pass the Hammer. There was no room for even the tiniest mistake and none was made by either. Jim pulled out of that heat at lap 21 when his tires could no longer do their job, slipping too much on each curve.
Slow motion af Kevin’s crash early on heat #2.
Ary watched the results and re-entered heats 5 and 6. He must have been hot or maybe just hungry as the audio catches him calling for lunch. Instead he ate our lunch setting an incredible fastest lap of 3.784 on the 3rd lap of the final heat, after sauntering to the start line a second before the starting “Go”. Two final heats of 75 laps each won him 3rd place with 213.46 laps just ahead of Roy`s 212.98 laps and behind Marty`s 215.36 and Kevin`s winning 216.80 laps. Roy could be heard cussing on the audio. Brian finished with 209.30 and Jim with 88 – I think he was cussing too but more silently.
Here are the results:
The recorded race can be viewed at our Ustream.tv channel: https://www.ustream.tv/channel/austin-slot-car-club
Pt1: https://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22700392
Pt2: https://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22703276