Triathlon at Electron Raceway on 9/23/19
Six locals showed up to race a Triathlon at Electron on 9/23/19. This week, the three events included LeMans Trials, Mixed race and GT1 race. The track conditions were excellent as personal bests were achieved and a GT1 record was nearly broken.
Joe posted a video of the final heat of the GT1 race on YouTube. See below
LeMans Trials
Only Bob and Mike officially ran cars in the Trials this week. Both improved their times and moved up in the standings one notch. The top four drivers and their times are shown below. James showed up with an OSCAR based GT40 utilizing his Can-Am chassis. With a loaner body, the car turned a fast lap lower than Richs first place 906. The loaner body did not include a driver tray and driver so James results were not officially tallied; however, I expect that James GT40 in finished form will be at the top of the leader board.
Mixed Race
After a few false starts, the Mixed race finally got underway. Richs OSCAR based GT40 was tangled in several wrecks in an aborted first heat. It was later determined that the car suffered from a broken solder joint holding one side of the motor bracket making the Ford quite unstable. Rich switched to his 69 Camaro and the race was re-started.
The initial heat included three of the top four seeds (Rich, Joe and Bob). Rich and Bob finished with identical lap and section counts of 21.4 while Joe had a rather poor heat of only 18.7 laps. As the race progressed, Bob opened up a lead of about two laps over Rich. This was a lead which Rich could not overcome in the final heat. So it was Bob and Rich for first and second respectively.
The battle for third place was between Joe and James. Both turned fast laps in the 5.0 range. As a result of a hard crash in practice, James Ferrari 458 suffered from some serious handling problems during the race. James gave it a good effort but, in the end, Joe finished third with 85.1 laps with James in fourth a couple of laps behind.
Before the race, Scott changed out a very worn and noisy gear on his 68 Firebird. This made quite a difference. Scott turned a personal best of 78.4 laps and a fast lap time of 5.220 seconds with the Firebird. Great work!
GT1 Race
Three of the top four seeds (Bob, Rich and James) ran in the initial heat. Both James and Rich struggled to keep up with Bob. James managed to run clean and finish about a half lap behind Bob. Rich made a few unforced errors running a poor heat of only 21.8 laps (about two laps behind the leader). This performance put Rich out of contention for both the top and second step of the podium. It is no wonder that James and Rich had a hard time keeping up with Bobs Enzo. In the initial heat Bob ran a blazing fast lap of 4.673 seconds (.1 seconds faster than James and .2 seconds faster than Rich). In subsequent heats, Bob expanded his lead over the pack winning the race with a fantastic lap count of 98.1 (only two sections behind his former record performance). James finished second nearly three and a half laps behind Bob.
Meanwhile, Rich and Joe battled for the bottom step of the podium. Going into the final heat Rich was ahead of Joe by a lap. Joe tried to close the gap, but Rich refused to bend. Both ran fine final heats but Joe was unable to close the gap. Rich finished third with Joe about a lap down in fourth.
Scott had a personal best turning a fast lap of 5.047 seconds. Improved consistency will lead to better results
