The car is now unloaded and there is now some time to bring you up to speed from our first race weekend with the FRC-07… and what a weekend it was.

A total of 3 trophies, a hard charger award and fastest lap time. What a great way to come out of the box.

A new racecar always means a few teething pains. For all our preparation, we were bit with one part failure one lap into our first practice session. It looks like a spring clip failed on the right side half shaft. By the time we had a spare shaft brought over from the shop we had missed all the morning practice sessions. Our testing plans went out the window but we were running.

Our first real session on the track was qualifying for the Sports racer/ open wheel race. The 10 minute session gave Dennis a chance to let the car come up to speed and start getting a feel for it on the track. He took it easy and qualified 4th.  

We had time for 2 minor changes to the car before the race, tire pressures and disconnect the front sway bar.

Race 1 saw Dennis move up to second place on the first lap where he started to chase after the fast #44 FF2000 car. Three or for laps in a full course caution gave him the opportunity to pass the leader on the restart and what followed was a great three way battle between the top three cars that lasted right up to the checkered flag….. we did it, we won our very first race.

Fast forward to day 2 and two more races on the schedule. Unfortunately it did not start very well. We woke up to rain and that was a non-starter for the Fusion team. We did not have rains and quite frankly, we did not want to run our test car on track with concrete walls everywhere in the rain. We missed all the morning practice and qualifying sessions and any chance we had to start working on setup changes.

But the heavens were about to smile on us. Just before the lunch break the weather began to change. By the drivers meeting at 12:40 it had stopped raining and right after the meeting the folks at Mission allowed us to go out on the track in the crew truck for a recon lap to inspect for standing water.

By the time we returned to the paddock the sun was coming out and the track was starting to dry. With a 1:15 start we did not have much time to decide…… It was a go, while Dennis ran into the trailer to get suited up, Titus, Paul and Ray jumped into high gear and did the last minute checks before going into our longest race of the weekend, the one hour Westcoast Sportscar Championship.

Race 2 By not going out for the qualifying session in the morning we had to start from the back of the 16 car pack so we knew we had our work cut out for us. The track was still fairly damp for the first 5 or so laps and progress forward was cautious. By the 15 minute mark Dennis had moved up to third and was starting to real in the leaders, but that came to a screeching halt when to everyone’s surprise when we were black flagged for a noise violation. Our car was one of the quietest out there!

After a 40 or 50 second stop to check things over under engine cover and exhaust, we were allowed to go back out. But with pit lane speed and the stop we were now a lap down. A call was made right after to come in for our mandatory pit stop (the black flag stop did not count) now that the pit stop window was open to get it over with. We had a lot of work to do and not much time left to do it.

Dennis put his head down and started pulling the lap times down setting the first, second and thirds fastest laps of the race. He was able to get us back on the lead lap and with 5 minutes to go he passed the 2nd and 3rd place cars in turn 3. Unfortunately the distance was to much to catch the lead Porsche (rumored at 750hp) but he was closing the gap by 2 seconds a lap to finish roughly 14seconds behind the leader at the end.

Net result from the WSC was second overall, second in class, fastest lap time and the hard charger award.

Race 3 and back to playing with the open wheel guys. But the job was going to be much harder this time because just like the WSC race, we had to start from the back of the pack with missing the morning qualifying and was a much shorter race. By the halfway mark Dennis had dispatched all but the leader and unfortunately he could not get close enough to mount an attack on the 44 car so we had to settle for a second in the second SR/Open wheel race. The good news was the combined points total of the 1st & 2nd gave us the overall win for the weekend.

So all in all it was a great launch for the Fusion FRC. We had zero testing time and we managed to be on the top two steps of the podium in every race we ran.

We now know some areas we can work on to bring our lap times down significantly and will be working on those before the next race. More updates on those plans in a few days.

For more information please contact Dennis Bainbridge at dennis@fusionracing.com