9/14/12 R.I.R. Challenge Cars @ California Speedway

The more I watch non-pro racing, the more I'm amazed with the rage these guys and girls (no girls in the current case, sadly, but anyway) defend their positions with. Battles here and there, someone just conquered a higher position, another crashed into the wall after turning unsuccessfully and now is 2 positions down from where he has been... And, certainly, none of them makes the win easy for opponents.

Competition began at the qualifying round. JP Paneer qualified 1st and got a time under 17 seconds (where 17.2 counts as a good lap), so others were trying to beat it, without any success though. Kev Kiranov got the closest time - he was only 0.202 seconds slower on his fastest lap.

And let's move to the main event that has demonstrated, yet again, that it doesn't matter which position you got on the grid - it all depends on how good you are in handling the traffic. Everything mixes up at the 1st turn, anyway... Badguy Boozehound, the owner of the venue and the race director of this race, even had to make a restart of the race, when some racers got flipped too much in the pile. Second time was more successful, and competition began.

And we got three battles right after the start! JP Paneer got a lead, but Kev Kiranov stayed behind and close to him. Right behind them, Sweet was defending 3rd position from Clifford Market, but that was slowing them both down. And a bit more behind then, Garth Moonites - against the whole pack in the battle for the 5th position.

The battle between Paneer and Kiranov never got any serious, because Kiranov got behind pretty quick - too many accidents occurred. Sweet kept on going 3rd with no traffic around him - Market got challenged for the 4th position with Moonites, that he lost and dropped onto the 5th position. (I can't carry on without a remark about Moonites - yes, his qualifying session wasn't any good, but he turned out to be skilled enough to avoid any serious accidents with other drivers, and that helped him in moving up.)

Clifford Market, however, wasn't as successful with traffic as Garth Moonites was, and pretty soon Moonites got another opponent - Aangel Cortes caught up with him thanks to Moonites' 1 second loss on the 16th lap. Next lap brought another surprise - Kev Kiranov got close to them (giving up his 2nd position to Sweet at the same time), but the battle ended on the next lap. Kiranov left Moonites and Cortes on their positions by expanding his lead after getting ahead of them. 1 lap after... he was already challenging Sweet for the 2nd position. The challenge was tough. Very tough. As soon as they ended up in the wall together, Moonites got past them and, therefore, became 2nd and began getting farther and farther away from Sweet and Kiranov.

Sweet, after a short while, got into an accident and dropped to the 6th position. Kiranov remained 3rd, but the opponent never sleeps - and it was Soubi Corith along with MidnightRambler Frostbite, who both, bit by bit, were getting closer to Kiranov. The battle began on the 31st lap, where Kiranov's mistake cost him 2 seconds.

At first, Frostbite got the lead, while Corith, Kiranov and joined Clifford Market were going three-wide. On the 36th lap, Market dropped behind them, and Frostbite, whose laps weren't as fast as Corith's and Kiranov's were, had to battle them again; that was, probably, the most intensive one for the whole race. None of them was going to give up their position, so they simply traded them till the end of the race.
Closer to the end, Kiranov turned out to be leading (even though Frostbite didn't let him have a big lead over him); Corith stayed a bit away from them. Frostbite overtook the 3rd position on the 45th lap, Kiranov got it back on the 48th lap...
Now guess who finished 3rd after all?
It was Soubi Corith! Last lap, like it happens, became crucial. Frostbite and Kiranov, in the rage of battle, simply crashed each other upon the wall, and that allowed Corith to overpass them.

Battling hard might be very intensive. Well, it always is very intensive and might get you very nervous. So it's important not to lose your head when you're in a battle or if there's a risk to get involved into one - maybe you'll take advantage of the situation!
See you on the grid, racers and readers - and compete hard!

The grid:

Pole Position. JP Paneer  16.845

P 2. Kev Kiranov,  17.047, -0.202

P 3. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  17.177, -0.332

P 4. 丂øυbι Cøяιtђ (Soubi Corith),  17.179, -0.334

P 5. BanningBairde,  17.266, -0.421

P 6. Garth Moonites,  17.290, -0.445

P 7. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  17.555, -0.710

P 8. Aangel Cortes,  17.830, -0.985

P 9. Clifford Market,  18.268, -1.423

Final Results:
1st. JP Paneer, 50 laps. Total Time : 876.003
2nd. Garth Moonites, -1 laps.
3rd. 丂øυbι Cøяιtђ (Soubi Corith), -1 laps.
4th. Kev Kiranov, -1 laps.
5th. MidnightRambler Frostbite, -1 laps.
6th. Clifford Market, -1 laps.
7th. Aangel Cortes, -2 laps.
8th. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -2 laps.
9th. BanningBairde, -3 laps.

Fastest race lap: Kev Kiranov, 16.667