Thunderslot Can-Am Race #1
The first round of the Thunderslot Can-Am race series took place Saturday, April 5th.
The track conditions were almost perfect with the ambient temperature in the upper 70’s and the track temp at 74 degrees.
The field of nine cars was a mix of almost every Thunderslot Can-Am car available. The only car missing was a Ferrari and I believe we will see one of those in the next round.
Before the races began there was a small issue of downforce. No car is allowed to use magnets of any kind but you will still can get some magnetic downforce from the magnets inside the motor. To address this, the club has a standing rule that no car is allowed to have more than 30 grams of magnetic downforce from the motor. This has rarely been an issue but it became a big one in this series.
Eight of the nine cars had a magnetic downforce reading that was greater than the clubs allowed 30 grams. In fact, the lowest downforce measured was 24 grams and the highest was at 54 grams. That is a big difference.
Some of the variance is due to the size of the tires being run on the car and another was with the bowing of the flexible stock chassis that allowed the motor to get super close to the track. There was nothing any of the racers had done to artificially enhance the downforce so there was nothing we could change on the cars at this point.
A quick meeting of all participants was held and the decision was made to run the series with the wide variance in magnetic downforce and let the results speak for themselves.
The cars were all turned out well with everyone setting some quick times with these perfect conditions.
The racing started off quick and stayed that way to the end. These cars are such fun to drive and can allow even the newest racer to set some quick times.
At the end of the day it was a battle between Ary and Marty with David being very close behind to pounce on either of the two leaders in case either of them had any deslots.
Congratulations to Ary for the win after a very long hiatus from racing at the track.
The video of the race is available on the clubs YouTube channel and it is worth watching. The racing is so close and exciting. I can’t wait for the next race.
