The first round of the Slot.it Group C Championship happened this past Saturday the 11th of January. The ambient temperature was a cool 58 degrees while the track temp was 71 degrees due to the above average mid-80’s temps Austin has been experiencing during this mild January.
There were three racers present for the B Group and five racers for the A Group.
All cars passed tech with no issues. Most cars weighed in around 70 grams with 15 grams of downforce but there was one outlier – David’s Lancia had a whopping 30 grams of downforce. This was due to the fact that his rear tires were nothing more than rubber bands. These super small diameter tires would allow his car to get close to the track and increase the downforce. Let’s see if the rubber band tires were the right call.
The B Group started off the racing with Randy, Kim, and Mark all doing a great job to keep their cars in the slot and put down some quality laps and times. Kim and Mark had a good race with both of them being very close at different times during their heats. Kim had one of her best races since joining the club. Randy was just quick enough to stay out front for every heat. This surely comes from his many hours of experience running on the club’s track.
At the end of the day, it was Randy out front with the race win and the fastest lap. Mark was second and Kim was a close third.
The A Group had all the usual suspects putting their new or reconditioned group C cars on the track to see who would be the fastest of the group.
Marty, David, and John stuck with the tried and true favorites – Porsche and Lancia – both with attached wings that have always performed well on the clubs track. Brian was stepping out, as he usually does, to run a Toyota while Marc showed up with the latest Slot.it Mazda offering in the beautiful livery that looks a bit like the Partridge Family bus.
The racing was close with the only real issues being related to the tire pick up on the track. You could see in just about every corner little clumps of sticky rubber – just like real race tracks. These little clumps of rubber wreak havoc with a cars handling. If you run over one and pick it up on your rear tires your car becomes unstable and difficult to drive. The best plan is to stay in the slot and not drift wide or de-slot when you are almost assuredly pick up at least one of these little clumps. David had issues with tire pickup on his car and John’s final heat was one to watch as John fought his car as it was bucking like a bronco everywhere on the track. He did an amazing job to keep his car on the track.
When it was all over, David had won the race but only by a half a lap over Marty but Marty did take fast lap to stay equal with David on points. Brian completed the podium in third place. Fourth was Marc and Fifth was John.
Now that racers have had some time on the track it will be interesting to see what changes they make in their cars to improve their result. The track temp was much warmer than we would expect to see this time of year. The high track temp was one of the key reasons the tires were shedding as much as they were.
It was great to see these well-designed cars running again on the club’s track. Slot.it has done an amazing job with these cars and they offer so many options while always being fun to set up and run.
I can’t wait to see how it goes at the next round.