F1 Proxy: Round 6 - Luf's Targa

[SuperSlab]

The cars have arrived in Vancouver, unfortunately together with a hefty customs bill. We will not be able to run the round this weekend due to Easter but plan on getting it done early next week. Will advise schedule as soon as I round up the usual suspects for the round.

Alwyn

[SuperSlab]

OK, looks like we are set for WEDNESDAY APRIL 24. I will do the qualifying at Luf's from 10:00 and the rest of the gang will arrive at 11:00 to run the race. Updates to follow. My great appreciation for our local small band of stalwarts that are ALWAYS up for doing the job!!!!

Cheers

Alwyn

[Rleog]

Excellent news. Thanks to all your regulars from the GVSCC.

[Aloha]

Alwyn
Thanks for the update
Be gentle with #7...nah have fun with it!
On a personal thanks for the update from CLR 24 Hour event ... great job!
Aloha
Dale

[SuperSlab]

[SuperSlab]

[Audi1]

Thanks for the update, Alwyn. Looking forward to Round 6 - always fun to run on the big Targa!

Allan

[SuperSlab]

Just about on my way to Luf's. As mentioned I will be running the qualification and we will then do the race immediately afterwards.

Watch this space....

Alwyn

[SuperSlab]

And just to set expectations and give some benchmark info:

* I do not have any F1 cars that would qualify for this proxy as all my cars still have the original motors.
* Closest would be a 2004 Kimi Ferrari which has done a 6.714 second lap and an A1GP at 6.657. Both of these cars are stock otherwise (plastic wheels etc.)
* Quickest F1 overall: 6.541, Policar Lotus 78. But that should not count as Policars are different animals.
* This compares to the track lap record of 5.958 (Smokeio's 2018/19 Group 5 Proxy entry qualifying)

[SuperSlab]

Qualifying is done, the race is done, the dust has settled and quiet has returned to Luf's great Targa track.

First some high level comments (to stretch out the anticipation....):

* I qualified the cars in reverse order from their current overall position, i.e. from fewest points to proxy leader.
* Qualifying was in lane 2. I always do this so I have comparable data between all proxies going forward. This is also the lane in which I run and record times for all my cars (don't ask....)
* I wiped the track with a microfiber cloth and then ran some laps with urethane-shod cars, wiping the tyres regularly with a damp microfiber cloth until the track was clean with good grip.

And then I fired up my laptop, turned the track voltage down to 10V and started in on the Q runs. My immediate reaction? Wow, the combination of low power motor and 10V is going to make for some slow lap times! Handling is fine but man, it takes a long time to cover the length of the straight!

And without further ado: ladies and gentlemen, the Q results:



Some post-Q run thoughts:

* Most cars ran acceptably well. This is surprising give the narrow spacing of F1 chassis combined with generally quite good grip: a tough combination.
* Chattering was rather common in the slower half of the fields. As per the first point this should not be a surprise I suppose. A few cars tended to grip quite tenaciously and then suddenly let go with quite a bit of chatter in the resulting slide.
* I suspect that some chassis deficiencies were largely masked by the low power, low speeds and low weight. Makes for a forgiving combination.
* As always: like the little girl with the little curl, the good cars were very, very good indeed.
* Chris W's car is a poster child for friction reduction. Never mind reduction: virtually complete elimination! We started the race on a very slight downhill: it was all but impossible to get Chris's car to stay in place! It just automatically started rolling downhill! In the end I had to place it at a slight angle to get it to stay put! Even with the photographs afterward it still wanted to run away! Very impressive!
* After the expectations created by the low power, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised for the fastest cars to drop into the 6-seconds realm. Given the power available I thought that was very good.

There you have it: qualifying at Luf's.

And BTW: I thought it would lead to information overload if I were to post the results straight after the qualifying results: where is the anticipation and the tightly stretched nerves in that??!! So I have decided to place an embargo on the race results: all will be revealed tomorrow bright and early! Together with photographs of the cars on the track.

Alwyn

[Modernslots]

Great report on qualifying- eagerly awaiting your race results!!
Rob

[arroldn]

Alwyn,
Thanks for the update and qualifying. Will be looking forward to seeing the race results in the morning.
Congratulations to the top 10.

[Brumos RSR]

Thank you for the qualifying round, good luck to all the builders and way to go Sir Chris, SteeveeW and Aloha

[arroldn]

Are you allowed to fix the guide so it doesn't bottom out? If so please do. Never mind I see the race is done.

[SuperSlab]

OK, enough of the stretching out of the excitement and anticipation... Here are the race results:



Some notes on the racing:

* It is common practice for us to use only the two outside lanes for proxy racing to avoid interference/entanglements. The objective is after all to determine the abilities of the cars, not the abilities of drivers to avoid each other while still going quickly. With open wheel cars, this becomes that much more important!
* Ergo: we ran in lanes 1 and 3 with both set at 10V (we have individual power supplies by lane).
* The race itself went smoothly with no issues.
* Cars (and drivers!) generally performed as suggested by the Q times. There were some minor switching of positions but nothing significant
* It was quite interesting to see the number of heats where the two cars finished within feet, if not inches, of each other. This in my experience is rather uncommon.
* The lack of friction that CHris W's car exhibited was startling! It was quite the trick to try to get it to stay put on even the very slight incline at the start of the race!

So on to some photographs:

The top three finishers:



The full field. Even in this photograph you can see Chris's car's penchant for wandering off! The slope here is absolutely minimal, but still: when I took the photograph I bumped my elbows on the track... and off the car went....



Groups of cars: first six:



Second six:



Third six:



First nine (for the golfers out there? :D ):



Second nine:



And as a finale: different angle of the podium group:



That is it for round 6. Congratulations to all participants: at the end of the day I must say I was more impressed with the group than I initially expected after feeling the low power of the motors at 10V. The cars ran consistently and rather well with some extremely close finishes: good job to all.

Alwyn