The FRL Recap has been missing for several races. Let’s take
a look back over the last couple of events.
After some lights-out
good racing at the front at Nurburgring, the series and points battle moved
across the pond to the U.S. for race number four at Infineon Raceway Park.
Andrew Steppat was bringing with him a slight edge in the points and ASR was
looking for an edge in the series. ASR would strike upon something in testing
in the days prior to race time. The team would switch to the Mitsubishi GSR and
would shatter all the previous records. MBR saw the change and scrambled to
setup their own versions of the GSR. But come race time ASR with Andrew at the
helm and already dominating the Lotus A-Class, would essentially write his name
in indelible ink at the top of the leaderboard.
Despite dominance in
both classes though, Andrew did struggle a bit at Infineon. In the first heat
he suffered from a hefty collision with Paul Maestri in turn two which caved in
his engine bonnet and forced him to limp into a fourth place finish. Ethan
capitalized on the event posting his first victory in the Lotus class. Tony
Tyree also had a bit of a coming out party by posting second and third place
finishes in heats one and two.
The AWD class held
some excitement as Ethan and Andrew would race close for most of the series.
Ethan claimed one heat win, but Andrew claimed 2, giving him the position
points and top lap time as well. Tony Tyree switched over to the Evo 8 and
performed quite well, gaining a third place position in the series. Andrew
pushes out to a comfortable lead after this event with Ethan in second. Paul
rides alone in third, nearly 50 points ahead of Tony Tyree. Tony takes
advantage of the missing Brandon Adkins and moves into fourth place in points.
Gabe Fast, unchallenged by any of the other rookies, closes the gap on Brandon.
The FRL moved from
West Coast to East Coast with the fifth event at Maple Valley Raceway. The
Lotus class went as expected with Andrew taking the top spot in both position
and lap time. Ethan Maestri posted second in both catagories and Paul Maestri
rounded out the top three.
With ASR looking to
put a stranglehold on first, Maestri Bros. Racing made the decision to switch
from running Mitsubishi to Ferrari and push their manufacturer affinity closer
to 50. This series went much the same as the Lotus class with Andrew out front,
followed by Ethan. Paul would get into some trouble with his Dino and wound-up
posting fourth, just behind Tony Tyree. Gabe Fast missed a heat due to power
outage and posted sixth behind Ross Merkling.
Next week FRL racing
moves to the sprawling Road America race course for the 24 Laps of Road America
presented by the FRL. This race will be a two part race running 12 laps in the
Lotus 2-Eleven’s and then 12 laps in the AWD’s.
