Well, as Brian Setzer sings, “Drive like lightning (GT), crash like thunder!” Crashes were certainly the order of the day for the first race of the Austin Slot Car Club 2015 racing season. I think we have a new record for race de-slots; move over Trans-Am. The cars proved somewhat, aahhh….unpredictable. I had figured the magnet cars would be difficult to drive quickly but there were more random de-slots than expected. Compounding the problem was the fact that few drivers had much lap time with the cars and even less with the car each driver drew to race. We will be looking at various tweaks before the next race, the first one probably being reducing the voltage. Even so, most everyone had a good time, and we even had a first-time race winner. Congratulations, David. Now all you need to do next time is not think about winning and just relax and drive. We also had two new members, Kyle and Susan, purchased cars Saturday morning and bravely jump right into fray with the rest of us. They did well considering lack of time racing on the track and no time on the new cars.
Seven out of the 10 entrants were in the B group. Rich and Max had a close battle with Rich coming out 1/2 lap ahead. Austin had the fastest lap in the B group. Steve had the fastest lap in the A group. Ary’s controller problem kept him from finishing higher.
Watching the race replay, to look for missed laps at every red flag, did take a while. Pausing, rewinding, and watching the lap count was tedious. Maybe, except for riders in one lane, we should have no red flags. I hope I caught all the scoring errors. In the first Heat, already hampered with controller problems, Ary had a lap not count. The race was red-flagged as he entered the esses. Placing his car back in front of the scoring bridge, he did get his lap, but lost a half-lap backing up. In Heat 5, Rich had his car come off before the bridge and missed a lap, and Kyle missed a lap being counted in Heat 9. Other incidents with riders or cars going through the lights in the wrong (or no) lane were taken care of during the red flag when the cars were reslotted. If I missed correcting anyone’s laps, please let me know.
