The 2017 Fray In Ferndale (Page 1 of 2)

Into the night on Wednesday the practice sessions were pretty low key and there was plenty of opportunities to get time on any track.

Here Dave Smith is testing some cars after some "tweaking".

Richard Phillis does an awesome job suppyling the basics for all the participants in setting up this event. There were tables set up for teams to use as pit areas all around the room. There seemed to be plenty of space for everybody.

The Purple Track was really tricky. Very technical on each end with nice long full out straights connecting them. Or at least that's how it appears. That top straight has a bridge half up leading onto it, and a bridge half down exitting it. Needless to say there were MANY offs at both ends of that upper straight. This was another track I practiced a lot on. It paid off as I had some good finishes on this track.

The different team's pit set ups were quite interesting. All the teams had poit areas with everthing you could possibly need to build or re-build your cars. Many teams had some very specialized tools built especially for racing the Fray type cars.

The Black Track was one of the most difficult for me. The extreme elevation changes added another degree of difficulty in controlling the cars speed through the corners. With that said it is a very cool track and also a crowd favorite. the Individual Race and Time Trails were held on this track.

Here is Richard Phillis in the flesh in his pit area working. My spy cam caught him in action. So if you don't think this guy is serious about T-Jet racing, you may be mistaken!

Some of the teams represented manufacturers of T-Jet HO parts designed specifically for Fray type racing. The Slot Tech pit area had many high quality parts for sale and available to racers.

The Green Track was very difficult with the two sections of esses!

This was a very serious pit area!

Dave Smith brought some beautiful hand painted cars to the Fray!

Thursday evening after the Team IROC Race there was more time for tuning and practice before Friday's Individual Race. Much to my dismay it was announced the Individual Race was going to be contested on the Black Track. At that point a waiting line formed at the Black Track for practice time!

The qualifying order for the 83 participants was random and posted. I was set to be the sixteenth racer up to qualify. Each racer would receive one warm up lap and then four timed laps. Their qualifying time was the average of their four timed laps.

After each racer ran the qualifying heats their cars were inspected and placed in the impound area.

Cars were checked for compliance to width and magnetic standards.

On Friday the complete IROC Race results were posted and racers could see how well they performed on an individual basis in the race. The race program Richard Phillis uses for the Fray races is very cool and captures a lot of data! Sorry about the sideways photo!

During qualifying and the Individual Race, racers that were not on the track in qualifying runs, racing, or turn marshalling had the opportunity for track practice on other tracks or for tuning their cars in the pits for Saturday's team races.

Dave Smith at the Black Track during his qualifying run for the Individual Race.

Left to right in this photo, I believe this is Mr. Hurley of the South Bay Team, Mike Leech Team Oregon, Dave Smith, and Brad Bowman.

The individual race was intense! The format was of a work-up type race. The bottom six qualifyers were on the track first in the Y Main. Each racer raced each lane in a 10 lap heat race. Points were scored for your finish position in each race. The top three finishers of each heat moved up to the next main. Here Dave Smith prepares for a run.

Monte Saager racing in his heat races.

Dave Smith and I were in this heat together.

So, I'm wondering how big of a gun you had to put to Monte's head in order to get him to agree to do this? Since I know how much he LOVE's to race HO cars.