Forzday Recap - Mugello 8/8/13

AIN'T CARE.

The FRL season rolls into the hills north of Rome, Italy for the second race of the series at Mugello Autodromo. The track that coined the term ‘Catastrophe Corner’ would remind everyone why it is one of the toughest Turn 1 tracks in the series circuit. Let’s take a look at how the night shook out.

 Heat One of the Lotus 2-Eleven class would set the tone early for many drivers, including Andrew Steppat, he would be spun hard into the wall before even reaching Turn 1. He emerged from Turn 1 behind a huge melee for position and would have to bide his time picking off targets one-by-one. Meanwhile, MBR drivers Ethan and Paul Maestri  avoided the early furball and would extend a fairly large lead over the field.  Late in the first lap Andrew would spin again while negotiating a pass on Ricky Wilborn Jr. this would effectively take him out of the chase for the lead and he would finish 3^rd. Ethan would finish first and Paul close behind in second.

 Heat Two would begin with a massive incident in ‘Catastrophe Corner’ and the big loser here would be Andrew again, caught in the middle of the pile. Ethan would make an early pass for the lead and set about trying to maintain the top spot. Andrew would catch him, but could not negotiate the pass on a hard charge in the final lap. Ethan would take the first two heats and his first class win for the 2-Eleven’s.

 Andrew would win the third heat soundly. Further afield, there were several good battles amongst drivers Brandon Adkins and Tony Tyree as they traded the 4^th and 5^th positions over all three heats. Ricky Wilborn Jr, Gabriel Fast and Jordan Gullett would be locked in battle for the 6^th through 8^th positions.

 In the AWD S-Class Outlaws the action would get cranked to 11 as there were several intense battles throughout the field. Brandon and Gabriel would run nose-to-tail for most of the three heats. Gabe would take the first heat over Brandon in 6^th place, but Brandon raced him hard in Heats 2 and 3, taking 4^th to Gabe’s 5^th place showing in both. This proved detrimental to Tony Tyree’s campaign for the 4^th position overall as he wound up in the lurch in 6^th place, losing ground to his rival Brandon. Jordan Gullett showed massive improvement throughout the evening, particularly in the AWD’s as his freshly minted Audi TT danced its way into 5^th place in the first heat of the class. Though placing 7^th in the subsequent races, he proved to be more than just a speed bump to the rest of the field.

 The biggest racing of the night was at the front of the field as Andrew Steppat and Ethan Maestri battled hard for the top spot on track and overall in the series. Heat One went to Ethan in the EVO 8. Heat 2 looked early to be a shoe-in for Andrew as Ethan got swept up in an incident with teammate Paul Maestri in Turn 7. However, Ethan would charge back and close in on Andrew in the final lap, though close, he could not make a pass and Andrew took the win. Heat 3 started well for both and the race for the class win was on. Andrew rode out the race in front with Ethan right on his bumper. In the final lap Ethan made a run on Andrew out of Turn 11 and got alongside his Audi. Into Turn 12 side-by-side Ethan would jump on the throttle early but could not get around the Cornhusker, he’d have to lift to keep from washing off the track. A bad setup into the ‘esses’ before Turn 15 would ensure the victory for Steppat Racing.

 As the season moves over the Alps and into Central Europe to the Nurburgring Grand Prix, the points lead goes to Andrew with a 3 point lead over Ethan. Paul sits solidly in third place overall with Brandon Adkins and Tony Tyree rounding out the top 5. The rookies were the big surprise out of Mugello as they diced it up with the veteran’s during all 6 heats. We look forward to the N.G.P. on August 22^nd to see what happens next in this exciting race series.