There were eight racers present for the third round of the Group 5 series with a mix of four racers in the A Group and four racers in the B Group. Conditions at the track were fantastic with the ambient temperature in the track room in the upper 60’s, low humidity and a track temperature of 66 degrees.
Walking around the pits with my spy camera I noticed that many of the competitors had done some series work on their cars to get them ready for this round of the series. The most interesting of which was the work done in the Barbosa racing pit. If you look closely in the image below you can see where the standard plastic chassis in this Scaleauto BMW M1 has been replaced with a metal one. Interesting. Could this be the recipe for getting the Scaleauto to the top of the podium? There was other work done in the pits on the Jagermeister Porsche 935 to make it faster and the black Ford Capri to keep it glued to the track. Come to think of it, I did see a tube of Shoo Goo next to the Capri.
Here are the race highlights.
Heat 1 had Stephen and his Lancia lead the field with 73 laps. It was apparent that he was going to be fast today.
Heat 2 saw Ary leading the way with a heat of 73 laps in a car that was better but still looked like a handful to drive.
Heat 3 had Ary, Stephen and Marty all running together. This looked to be the heat of the day. Both Marty and Ary ran 75 laps to Stephens 71. The fast lap was set by Marty with a time of 3.815 to Ary’s 3.871.
Heat 4 once again saw Ary and Marty running with each other the whole way. Ary ended up getting across the line in the final seconds to give him a lap total of 76 to Marty’s 75.
Heat 5 had Marty chasing Ary’s lap total of 224 laps while trying not to push so hard that the car de-slot. Rich and John were both having a great run trying to rack up as many laps as possible to move up the Group B leader board. At the end Marty just had enough laps to beat Ary with a total of 225 laps.
Heat 6 had Rich running his much improved Capri against the newest club member John and our new A Grouper – Jordan. At the end it was Rich with 69 laps to Jordan’s 67 and John’s 54. A strong run for the Capri.
Heat 7 had Jordan running consistent but not fast and David not far behind with a lap total of 66 laps, David was not far behind with 63 and John had a strong run with 58 laps.
The final heat was a great one to watch with all the racers running close together the entire race. Even with the de-slots the results were very close. Jordan lead the way with 67 laps, David was right behind him with 65 laps and Mark was right behind them with 63 laps.
Marty won the A Group, just barely, while Rich won the B Group by a healthy 10 lap margin in his much improved Capri.
The overall results for the series have Marty in first in A, David in first in B with the rest of the field chasing very close behind. With three rounds in the series left all the podium spots are still open.
The next round of the series is April 11th at 2pm. If you are not planning to race you should at least come out to watch. These races are close and there is lots of action.
See you on the 11th!