As can been seen from the above info, things were pretty close through about the first nine heats, with every team leading at least one heat. Then some of the teams starting having trouble. I didn't have time to make any notes about who they were, but a couple of teams had gear troubles that were easily repaired. Team Daytona had a rear ball bearing come completely apart, likely the result of crash damage, and they spent a lot of time in the pits getting that fixed.
Teams were allowed to make the mandatory motor change (under power-on conditions, remember) in either heat 12 or heat 13, and that accounts for a bit of shuffling of the running order in those two heats.
The nighttime part of the race began in heat 19 and problems with their lights impacted Pinellas Park and Winter Garden greatly in the closing six heats, as both teams had partial or full failures of their fiddly-to-install Slot.it lightweight lighting kits. Without lights, it was not possible to race and that's why these two teams dropped back so much in the closing heats. We also discovered that a 1-1/2 min break between heats was a little short during the nighttime segments, so the race director got a litle free-form with the intermission lengths.
The Melbourne team assumed the lead after heat 5 and was never headed, leading the last 20 heats, although it was not a commanding lead until later in the race. A couple of other teams were in the hunt if Melbourne had had any trouble but they didn't.
Melbourne averaged 170.8 laps per heat, compared to second-place Daytona's 161.8 average.
Fastest laps for each team:
Melbourne: 3.018 secs
Daytona: 3.069
Pinellas Park: 3.019
Winter Garden: 3.129
One of the nicest things about the Petite Sebring was how none of the racers even so much as raised a voice at the marshals, although a few of them had to be alerted to cars off in their corners. And there were very few riders ending with big bangs.
A big shout-out has to be directed to Marilynn Guard, Jay's lovely wife, who stayed up late the night before preparing the terrific food: three kinds of scrumptious croissant sandwiches, a seven-layer Mexican dip, a big pan of yummy iced chocolate brownies, and a big batch of her superior chocolate-chip cookies better than you can buy anywhere (I've been eating them for years...).
I don't think I've ever attended a more pleasant and enjoyable slot car race in my life. And I believe all the racers would agree with that sentiment, as evidenced by the fact that almost all of them handed Jay more than the entry fee he had requested. If anyone who was invited wouldn't come to the next one, they can post here to tell us that. Bet we won't hear a single discouraging word...
Pics of the racers and the podiums in the next post.
