Post by old23 on Dec 4, 2015 13:29:30 GMT -5
Round 4 - Son of Redhill Raceway
Following is a condensed summary of the Race Report and Comments posted on SCI:
Under the lights at the obscure speedway known as Son of Red Hill Raceway...
...on a cold and windy Friday night, two obsessed and unreasonable hobbyists put the classic racers on the track to see who would gain the most advantage for tomorrow's Gala Event.
The track was freshly cleaned & rubbered in, we cleaned the tires with sticky-tape rolls, and most cars had good traction. As the evening progressed, the surface did get colder, but that didn't seem to matter much.
Taking each class of cars in the order of their race numbers, we got several full laps out of each car and the results are as follows:
GP2.5 class:
1st: #69 Vanwall - 7.741
2nd: #26 Bugatti - 7.842
3rd: #22 Lotus 16 - 7.891
4th: #14 Mercedes - 7.892
5th: #32 Maserati - 7.986
6th: # 20 Vanwall - 8.193
7th: #34 Ferrari - 8.520
8th:#5 Maserati - 8.658
9th: #16 Maserati - 8.773
GP1.5 Class:
1st: #6 Cooper - 7.173
2nd: #11 Ferrari - 7.201
3rd: #28 Lotus - 7.241
4th: #16 Brabham - 7.315
5th: #47 BRM - 7.421
6th: #10 Honda - 7.511
7th: #9 BRM - 7.550
8th: #18 Brabham - 7.579
9th: #4 Lotus 24 - 7.663
10th: #17 BRM - 7.847
11th: #69 Honda - 7.947
We had to perform braid adjustments to two cars, but they responded to the treatment well and all cars seemed to be working right, no lost parts, stuck wheels, and very very few offs.
-Max
---------------------------------------------------------------
Race is run, positions tonight, photos & more stats tomorrow....
Hello all, we have only a quick report tonight with the finishing places in each class -- some surprises & some not. I will post a more detailed report and photos for you all tomorrow sometime in the late California morning.
We had 3 drivers and used 3 lanes only; the track voltage was 10V and we ran 4-minute heats. We had two no-shows as well, consequently we lagged a little bit on the overall management. We ran the GP2.5 cars first.
Results for Class GP2.5 - top 3 cars each with same lap total, 2nd and 3rd separated by less than 12 inches (!)
1st: #14 Mercedes - Old23 - 81.7 laps
2nd: #16 Maserati - Aloha - 81.4 laps
3rd : #5 Maserati - Fastwagon - 81.4 laps
4th: #69 Vanwall - Ferrai1950 - 80.8 laps
5th: #26 Bugatti - GAS41T - 80.2 laps
6th: #22 Lotus 16 - Chrisguyw - 79 laps
7th: #20 Vanwall - CharlesX - 78 laps
8th: #34 Ferrari - David Mitcham - 77 laps
9th: #32 Maserati - Phil K - 74 laps
As much as surprise to us as it is to you, reviewing the qualifying results! But consistency & predictability took these two back runners to the podium.
Results for GP1.5 Class - not so surprising.
1st: #11 Ferrari 158 - Chrisguyw - 97 laps
2nd: #28 Lotus 21 - Old23 - 95 laps
3rd: #16 Brabham - Stubbo - 93.4 laps
4th: #6 Cooper - Charles X - 93.1 laps
5th: #10 Honda - Phil K - 88 laps
6th: #4 Lotus - AMCC Grandkids - 87 laps
7th: #9 BRM - RIR - 85 laps
8th: #18 Brabham - MRossmassler - 82 laps
9th: #17 BRM - David Mitcham - 81 laps
10th: #69 Honda - Ferrari1950 - 78 laps
11th: #47 BRM - Newso - DNS (broken guide/lost braid ; did not complete first lap of the race)
The quick report on driving impressions - the GP1.5 cars are all incredibly smooth and most of them made very few off-track excursions. Many of the GP2.5 cars felt top-heavy and tippy - several offs, but there were no bad crashes. Most had pretty good traction; many didn't have much top end at 10V and it seems we may sometimes have pushed too hard to compensate. I will give my own car-by-car impressions when I write more tomorrow.
Terry, I'm sure you're disappointed as your car did well in qualifying. We did not notice a problem at the end of the qualifying run, but I don't think we could have repaired the problem very easily in any case. I will PM you a photo of the guide so you can see why I say that.
Many of these cars are among the finest crafted slot cars I have ever seen, certainly that I have laid hands on. It is really a privilege to get to run these cars that have had such devotion put into them.
-Max
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GP1.5 Podium
The GP2.5 Podium
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd just line to add, as co-conspirator and driver of the GREEN lane, that it was -- as last year --a real privilege to be able to drive such beautiful machinery!! Thanks guys and I hope next year, I will actually have an entry as well --
As to the mystery of the 2.5L class. When we first looked at the summary, the reactions were the same as yours -- WTF???
However, when you look at the Heat data, it became clear that the two Scaley Masers --while slowest of the group, were almost never spun ..or 'blocked' thru the squeeze by a slower car, etc. The 2.5L are more 'tippy' for sure and at least every other 'fast' car had at least one 'bad' lane --which killed it on average...
I'll try to post some individual car 'observations' later --
Thanks again,
Steve
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cars have been sent to The Professor for the next round....
...."they say" that the package will arrive Saturday or Monday.
Apparently I failed to save the lap time data in the Trakmate software, which mystifies me somewhat and embarrasses me quite a lot - especially since it's not that difficult to do. It's possible that the files got stored in some other directory than the Result files, unlikely as it seems, and I will check again next time I am at the track. But I can state that the #11 Ferrari was the only car to post a lap under 7.00 seconds.
As Dennis said in an earlier post, the quality of the builds is really coming up. Every car was worth looking at closely, lots of imaginative detail engineering and many excellent paint jobs - some, in fact, stunning. And almost all ran very smoothly. Reviewing the lap counts, the cars were generally very well matched. I think the principal differences in performance was not so much in traction this year, at least at SoRH, but due to guide height. Only a couple of the cars were truly tail-happy, but a lot of the "offs" were on tight turns where the guide came out before the rear tires gave up.
Once again, my apologies for the shortfall in race management, and congratulations for making beautiful slot cars.
Max
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Max, thanks again for hosting the 4th round of VRAA 2015. It's a pity about the lack of Fastest Lap data but I'll go ahead and update the Official Results and Standings thread with the info you have provided.
Old23
Following is a condensed summary of the Race Report and Comments posted on SCI:
Under the lights at the obscure speedway known as Son of Red Hill Raceway...
...on a cold and windy Friday night, two obsessed and unreasonable hobbyists put the classic racers on the track to see who would gain the most advantage for tomorrow's Gala Event.
The track was freshly cleaned & rubbered in, we cleaned the tires with sticky-tape rolls, and most cars had good traction. As the evening progressed, the surface did get colder, but that didn't seem to matter much.
Taking each class of cars in the order of their race numbers, we got several full laps out of each car and the results are as follows:
GP2.5 class:
1st: #69 Vanwall - 7.741
2nd: #26 Bugatti - 7.842
3rd: #22 Lotus 16 - 7.891
4th: #14 Mercedes - 7.892
5th: #32 Maserati - 7.986
6th: # 20 Vanwall - 8.193
7th: #34 Ferrari - 8.520
8th:#5 Maserati - 8.658
9th: #16 Maserati - 8.773
GP1.5 Class:
1st: #6 Cooper - 7.173
2nd: #11 Ferrari - 7.201
3rd: #28 Lotus - 7.241
4th: #16 Brabham - 7.315
5th: #47 BRM - 7.421
6th: #10 Honda - 7.511
7th: #9 BRM - 7.550
8th: #18 Brabham - 7.579
9th: #4 Lotus 24 - 7.663
10th: #17 BRM - 7.847
11th: #69 Honda - 7.947
We had to perform braid adjustments to two cars, but they responded to the treatment well and all cars seemed to be working right, no lost parts, stuck wheels, and very very few offs.
-Max
---------------------------------------------------------------
Race is run, positions tonight, photos & more stats tomorrow....
Hello all, we have only a quick report tonight with the finishing places in each class -- some surprises & some not. I will post a more detailed report and photos for you all tomorrow sometime in the late California morning.
We had 3 drivers and used 3 lanes only; the track voltage was 10V and we ran 4-minute heats. We had two no-shows as well, consequently we lagged a little bit on the overall management. We ran the GP2.5 cars first.
Results for Class GP2.5 - top 3 cars each with same lap total, 2nd and 3rd separated by less than 12 inches (!)
1st: #14 Mercedes - Old23 - 81.7 laps
2nd: #16 Maserati - Aloha - 81.4 laps
3rd : #5 Maserati - Fastwagon - 81.4 laps
4th: #69 Vanwall - Ferrai1950 - 80.8 laps
5th: #26 Bugatti - GAS41T - 80.2 laps
6th: #22 Lotus 16 - Chrisguyw - 79 laps
7th: #20 Vanwall - CharlesX - 78 laps
8th: #34 Ferrari - David Mitcham - 77 laps
9th: #32 Maserati - Phil K - 74 laps
As much as surprise to us as it is to you, reviewing the qualifying results! But consistency & predictability took these two back runners to the podium.
Results for GP1.5 Class - not so surprising.
1st: #11 Ferrari 158 - Chrisguyw - 97 laps
2nd: #28 Lotus 21 - Old23 - 95 laps
3rd: #16 Brabham - Stubbo - 93.4 laps
4th: #6 Cooper - Charles X - 93.1 laps
5th: #10 Honda - Phil K - 88 laps
6th: #4 Lotus - AMCC Grandkids - 87 laps
7th: #9 BRM - RIR - 85 laps
8th: #18 Brabham - MRossmassler - 82 laps
9th: #17 BRM - David Mitcham - 81 laps
10th: #69 Honda - Ferrari1950 - 78 laps
11th: #47 BRM - Newso - DNS (broken guide/lost braid ; did not complete first lap of the race)
The quick report on driving impressions - the GP1.5 cars are all incredibly smooth and most of them made very few off-track excursions. Many of the GP2.5 cars felt top-heavy and tippy - several offs, but there were no bad crashes. Most had pretty good traction; many didn't have much top end at 10V and it seems we may sometimes have pushed too hard to compensate. I will give my own car-by-car impressions when I write more tomorrow.
Terry, I'm sure you're disappointed as your car did well in qualifying. We did not notice a problem at the end of the qualifying run, but I don't think we could have repaired the problem very easily in any case. I will PM you a photo of the guide so you can see why I say that.
Many of these cars are among the finest crafted slot cars I have ever seen, certainly that I have laid hands on. It is really a privilege to get to run these cars that have had such devotion put into them.
-Max
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GP1.5 Podium
The GP2.5 Podium
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd just line to add, as co-conspirator and driver of the GREEN lane, that it was -- as last year --a real privilege to be able to drive such beautiful machinery!! Thanks guys and I hope next year, I will actually have an entry as well --
As to the mystery of the 2.5L class. When we first looked at the summary, the reactions were the same as yours -- WTF???
However, when you look at the Heat data, it became clear that the two Scaley Masers --while slowest of the group, were almost never spun ..or 'blocked' thru the squeeze by a slower car, etc. The 2.5L are more 'tippy' for sure and at least every other 'fast' car had at least one 'bad' lane --which killed it on average...
I'll try to post some individual car 'observations' later --
Thanks again,
Steve
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cars have been sent to The Professor for the next round....
...."they say" that the package will arrive Saturday or Monday.
Apparently I failed to save the lap time data in the Trakmate software, which mystifies me somewhat and embarrasses me quite a lot - especially since it's not that difficult to do. It's possible that the files got stored in some other directory than the Result files, unlikely as it seems, and I will check again next time I am at the track. But I can state that the #11 Ferrari was the only car to post a lap under 7.00 seconds.
As Dennis said in an earlier post, the quality of the builds is really coming up. Every car was worth looking at closely, lots of imaginative detail engineering and many excellent paint jobs - some, in fact, stunning. And almost all ran very smoothly. Reviewing the lap counts, the cars were generally very well matched. I think the principal differences in performance was not so much in traction this year, at least at SoRH, but due to guide height. Only a couple of the cars were truly tail-happy, but a lot of the "offs" were on tight turns where the guide came out before the rear tires gave up.
Once again, my apologies for the shortfall in race management, and congratulations for making beautiful slot cars.
Max
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Max, thanks again for hosting the 4th round of VRAA 2015. It's a pity about the lack of Fastest Lap data but I'll go ahead and update the Official Results and Standings thread with the info you have provided.
Old23