R.I.R. Challenge Cars @ Speed Park Raceway

(Race of 8/10/12)

Pro racers aren't allowed to participate in non-pro events. Despite that, some of them are coming over just to watch - because it's never well-known when the non-pro racer will reveal his or her potential, especially if one of them is a venue owner's wife (who, for such occasion, prepared herself and her car very well).
Speed Park Raceway is actually 2 tracks separated by pits - the inner one is a regular oval track, and the outer one is diamond-shaped (4 L-turns) and very wide, therefore is a pretty easy track, and that was the one the race took place yesterday. All the racers should have had the right settings exactly for this track, so a few battles were expected, since most of them are quite experienced in racing already. That explains why most of qualifying times were very close to each other.
After being blessed by Eagle Clawtooth, another R.I.R. legendary driver, racers got on the track to see who's the best among them.
In the beginning of the race, Garth Moonites took the lead after avoiding The Great Piling-Up at the start, but promptly lost it after being crashed by another racer - and BanningBairde along with Clifford Market took the lead and got into the battle for the first place, won by Market.
However, it seemed to be that Market felt quite out of the place at the 1st position - he haven't got used to get this high yet, besides BanningBairde remained on his tail. So, trying desperadely to expand his lead to guarantee himself the permanence of his position, he got too risky at the certain moment and scratched the wall letting BanningBairde through. After a few laps, going 2nd, he crashed against the wall very badly and lost any opportunity to make it to the Top 3 with an approximately 50 seconds loss.
So the rest moved up - MidnightRambler Frostbite, with 4 seconds behind BanningBairde, became 2nd, with Moonites right behind him (apparently not in the best condition for racing, acccording to the amount of mistakes he made) and SweetTooth Firehawk on 4th now.
And Frostbite, who obviously was cornering better than BanningBairde, began bit by bit, but constantly decreasing the gap between him and the 1st position, without pushing too hard - it was 23rd lap, only close to the halfway. Both had a clear track ahead of them, and eventually, his target has been successfully reached - right at the moment the traffic appeared and became the last obstacle that dotted all the i's when Frostbite managed to slip through while BanningBairde was shaking it off.
Meanwhile, at the 3rd place, Garth kept on failing, what was a surprise for me, especially remembering his exciting performance a week ago. After losing 3 seconds at the 22th lap, he got into the battle with Sweet that didn't last long - Sweet definitely was doing better than Moonites, so he was the one who obtained the 3rd position.

The race was a great illustration of the importance not to get desperade at the track - it might seem to be a good idea until the crash that turns out to be crucial, and we witnessed plenty of them. While not a lot were critical for racers, of course, a lot caused changes to the racers' positions. The race was pretty predictable at some moments and turned out to be totally unpredictable at other ones. In the end, it was very spectacular and, it can even be said, educational. Thank you very much racers, congratulations winners - keep on competing!



Number of laps: 50
Race length: 16 minutes

The Grid:

Pole Position. BanningBairde  18.456
P 2. Garth Moonites,  18.523, -0.067
P 3. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  18.547, -0.091
P 4. Clifford Market,  18.674, -0.218
P 5. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  18.683, -0.227
P 6. doobeedoo Littlething,  19.307, -0.851
P 7. unknown Kanya,  23.187, -4.731



Final Results:
1st. MidnightRambler Frostbite, 50 laps. Total Time : 950.519
2nd. BanningBairde Resident, -3.447 seconds.
3rd. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -13.455 seconds.
4th. Garth Moonites, -1 laps.
5th. doobeedoo Littlething, -1 laps.
6th. unknown Kanya, -10 laps.
7th. Clifford Market, -27 laps. (retired)

Fastest race lap: BanningBairde, 17.587