Ten racers showed up to compete in the first round of the 2015 Group 5 race series – seven Group A racers and three Group B racers. The racers showed up with cars that were as varied as we have seen in any series to date. Here is what everyone was running, from what I know.
Marty – Racer Sideways Capri, In-line, short can motor
Ary – ScaleAuto BMW M1
Shawn – ScaleAuto Porsche 935, in-line, short can motor
Russell – Custom Porsche 935 w/Racer Porsche 935 chassis, in-line, boxer motor
Jordan – Racer Sideways BMW M1, anglewinder, boxer motor
Stephen – Racer Sideways Lancia, in-line, short can motor
Brian – Racer Sideways BMW M1
David – ScaleAuto BMW M1
Mark – Racer Sideways Ferrari 512 BB
Rich – Racer Sideways Ford Capri
Highlights of the Race
Group A saw the return of Brian from the snowy north with a beautiful Racer Sideways BMW M1 in a custom livery. Brian did a great job considering he has not run a slot car in seven months and built his car without any test track time. Brian was also awarded a Austin Slot Car Club Race Team shirt for all of his work he has done over the years for the club. Thanks Brian.
Ary and Shawn were both running ScaleAuto cars with Shawn running the Porsche 935 and Ary the BMW M1. Ary was struggling to get the BMW to hook up in the turns and was driving an excellent race considering the limitations of the car while Shawn’s car was super stable but lacked straight line speed. Ary ended up finishing second with Shawn only one lap behind in third.
The highlight heat of the race was between Russell, Shawn and Ary with everyone running side by side for many laps. No work here for the marshals as the racers had a great run with Ary and Shawn finishing on the same lap and Russell only one behind.
This was the first race for Jordan in the A Group and he did very well considering his beautiful Racer Sideways BMW M1 was almost box stock and had few test laps in it.
One of the interesting facts about the race were the fast lap times for the top of the A Group – Other than Marty’s time the next three racers all had fast lap times within 0.014 seconds of each other using very different set ups.
Another interesting fact was Jordan’s fifth place finish with a fast lap time of only 4.238, fourth slowest of the day. The point here is that Jordan drove a poor handling car within it limits to minimize the number of de-slots and finish as high as possible in the points. Great result.
In Group B David did a great job to finish first in the group considering he had to take his car into the pits under green to have a body screw tightened. David didn’t take the win by much a Mark was only one lap behind him. Mark had a strong race and one of his best runs to date. Third place racer Rich was having handling issues with his Ford Capri that put him down the leader board to finish a distant third. Looks like some work to be done in the Chaffee garage before the next round.
There are three weeks before the next round of the series. Let’s see how the racers use the time and what changes/tweaks they make to climb the leader board.
We look forward to seeing everyone back on February 14th for the next round of the series.
Credit for all the pictures goes to Russell. Thanks mate.
Great article Marty. I like the car/motor comparo. You might want to take it a little easier next race. I think I smelled your motor running hot; you might need to take some cool-down laps during the race:-)