Round of Turkey Race 2Victoria Desai made a brilliant getaway to go from 7th at the line to 3rd at turn 1, and then 1st at turn 3! There was a lot of minor contact throughout the field, but nothing major that cost positions or penalty points.
Lap 2 saw Desai lead Greenlaw by a second, while everyone else was being held up by Melrose. Turn 1 saw the first major incident, where Joe Harmsky, Martin van der Maeyede and Carsten Jancker went three wide. Jancker had gotten a slow exit out of the final corner, and van der Maeyede went to the inside, only for Harmsky to slipstream him and go inside as well. The Kingfisher driver panicked and gave Harmsky a lot of room, but not enough to Jancker and spun the Hydook around. He got away without a penalty, but picked one up at turn 9 when he moved across on Alessandro Lucarelli under brakes and spun him.
Also at turn 1, Hendra Naufal completely failed at stopping his car and went way into the runoff, while Roberto Dinella had a moment at turn 11 and got passed by most of the field.
Lap 3 saw the first retirement of the race, with Tyler Buckley's engine catching fire forcing him to stop at turn 4. Lorenzo Crescenzi had a big moment at turn 8 that saw him use a lot of the runoff, and Marcos Marcia retired with a loose wheel, mere metres from the pit lane.
While Desai had initially stretched her lead to two seconds, by lap 4 Greenlaw had caught up again and pulled off a very professional pass at turn 9 (aided by Desai going as far to the right as possible). He immediately went off up the road, while Desai set about holding second place.
Hendra Naufal's race got worse when he spun completely on his own at turn 4, somewhere where no one had even looked like locking a wheel all weekend. Two more mechanical DNFs hit Quentin Reatherson and Eric Swerts, who parked almost next to each other at turn 7.
Lap 5 saw the first controversy of the race, between Joel Melrose and Daniel Melville, by this point fighting over 8th place. At turn 5, Melrose locked up and went wide. Melville took the oppurtunity and dove inside, with the result being they went side by side into turn 6. Melville almost hit the inside kerb, while Melrose still hadn't managed to recover and was way out wide. As they came out of the corner, Melrose turned left - hard. Straight into Melville. The sort of thing that gives Mad Brother Melrose a heart attack and a certain drunk Scotsman a big mouth. Melrose was hit with an instant 65 penalty points, and may face harsher penalties post-race. His only saving point was that Melville wasn't too badly affected, and he passed Melrose at turn 9 later anyway.
Meanwhile, Octan set about securing "Reject of the Weekend" with a collision. Bainomugisha was again weaving all over the track on the run to turn 9, but this time Lamberigts didn't avoid him, sending the Ugandan into a spin. Carsten Jancker's race also came to an end with a transmission problem, and Jan Maylander parked with a puncture.
Raul Souto Maior had some bad luck, a wheel working itself loose on lap 6 forcing him into the pit lane. He'd been making good progress and could potentially have gotten past Desai. Hendra Naufal had yet another moment, running wide at turn 8, and Shane Walsh had to park and retire. There was yet another incident at turn 9 between Takagi, Horford and Taki. Horford was leading the pack, while behind them Taki had a dive on Takagi. It went fine until the brakes locked and Taki slid past Takagi and into Horford, punting her off the track.
Lap 7 saw the second big moment of the race. At turn 9 while fighting for lower points places, Ryan Zimmer and Nathanael Cameron came together and both half spun, but maintained their positions. However, the yellow flags were still out when Joel Melrose, Joe Harmsky and Dorien Lamberigts came by. Melrose slowed for the flags, but Harmsky and Lamberigts saw them too late, and both sailed past, picking up penalties. Lamberigts panicked, and when she hit the brakes they locked and she drilled the back of Harmsky's car, picking up more penalty points and spinning. The icing on the cake? In order to recover, she drove straight into the path of van der Maeyede, costing them both their front wings, and Lamberigts another 45 points (115 at once! But there's more to come...)
Branko Ristic ended Hydook's weekend when he sprung a water leak on lap 8, whil Raul Souto Maior's race went from bad to worse to horrendous when he spun after hitting Melrose and needed to pit for fuel afterward, along with Roberto Zayas and Paul Travesen, who had opposite problems - the ZombieKart with throttle problems and the Linton-Solindahl with brake problems.
Lap 9 was the end of Nick Nurmester with an oil leak, the JLD just managing to coast over the line to be classified. Octan devolved into yet more stupidity, this time it was Bainomugisha spinning at turn 11 and collecting Dorien Lamberigts, who gave up there and then and parked the car. But she won't be recording a DNF in this race, the stewards having already informed the team that she would be disqualified for dangerous driving. Anita Horford had been struggling since she got hit by Taki, and Takagi also retired with a water leak.
By now, Greenlaw had a very big lead over Desai, while third place was being contested by Franc Piscine and both West Cliff drivers. With the battle at the front over, the action was back here. In the end, Greenlaw backed off a bit and won by a clear 8 seconds from Desai, while Piscine won the battle for third, getting a mighty run onto the back straight and leaving Davies trying to fend off Port. The final points were rounded off by Ryan Zimmer, Leandro Moreira and Judd McAllister, all scoring for the first time this season. But the best finish was that of Joe Harmsky, Nathanael Cameron, Dale Hamilton and Paul Travesen, who were separated by 7 tenths of a second, with Cameron and Hamilton as side by side as it was possible to be, separated by .001 of a second.
Results - Race 2Code: Select all
Pos Driver Team Time/Retired Gap
1 Dan Greenlaw Prospec 17:27.104 10 LAPS
2 Victoria Desai Kamaha 17:35.130 + 8.026
3 Franc Piscine Good Call 17:42.659 + 15.555
4 Jordan Davies West Cliff 17:43.819 + 16.715
5 Peter Port West Cliff 17:44.458 + 17.354
6 Ryan Zimmer ZimSport 17:48.927 + 21.823
7 Leandro Moreira Fusion 17:52.259 + 25.155
8 Judd McAllister BITWM 17:57.805 + 30.701
9 Marko Jantscher Fusion 18:00.092 + 32.988
10 Daniel Melville ZimSport 18:02.443 + 35.339
11 Joe Harmsky Shonan 18:04.409 + 37.305
Code: Select all
12 Nathanael Cameron Prospec 18:04.998 + 37.894
13 Dale Hamilton Red Bull 18:04.999 + 37.895
14 Paul Travesen Linton-Solindahl 18:05.115 + 38.011
15 Diego Mauricio Batistuta Aeroracing 18:12.486 + 45.382
16 Alessandro Lucarelli Parma Corse 18:17.356 + 50.252
17 Roland Dvaidson Gulf JCW 18:18.034 + 50.930
18 Takuma Taki Red Bull 18:19.602 + 52.498
19 Samora Mondlane Porto Wine 18:29.834 + 1:02.730
20 Lorenzo Crescenzi Parma Corse 18:31.939 + 1:04.835
21 Roberto Dinella Jones 18:35.948 + 1:08.844
22 Joel Melrose JLD 18:36.216 + 1:09.112
23 Martin van der Maeyede Kingfisher 18:36.408 + 1:09.304
24 Anita Horford BITWM 18:36.750 + 1:09.646
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25 Yuri Sokolov Shonan 18:39.002 + 1:11.898
26 Raul Souto Maior Aeroracing 18:42.885 + 1:15.781
27 Jose Maria Cabral Porto Wine 18:44.685 + 1:17.581
28 Bob Sampson Kamaha 18:46.326 + 1:19.222
29 Calvin Brooks Kingfisher 18:47.065 + 1:19.961
30 Roberto Zayas ZombieKart 18:50.874 + 1:23.770
31 Hendra Naufal Takagi 18:56.746 + 1:29.642
32 Iulian Pitea Dofasco 18:57.760 + 1:30.656
33 Kevin Bainomugisha Octan 19:15.031 + 1:47.927
34* Tetsuya Takagi Takagi Water Leak (L9) +2 LAPS
35* Nick Nurmester JLD Oil Leak (L9) +2 LAPS
DNF Branko Ristic Hydook Water Leak (L8)
DNF Shane Walsh ZombieKart Engine (L6)
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DNF Carsten Jancker Hydook Transmission (L5)
DNF Jan Maylander Dofasco Pucnture (L5)
DNF Quentin Reatherson Linton-Solindahl Oil Leak (L4)
DNF Eric Swerts Jones Suspension (L4)
DNF Marcos Marcia Good Call Loose Wheel (L3)
DNF Tyler Buckley Gulf JCW Oil Leak (L3)
DSQ Dorien Lamberigts Octan Disqualified (9 laps)
Fastest lap: Dan Greenlaw (1:42.500)
Championship Standings and Stewards Report to follow.
). With Hamilton still out until basically the beginning of the RoLFS season, I'll put Greenlaw in the second MRT for Monaco and see how he does.
