The sun shone
brightly over the HD enhanced digital rendering of Silverstone raceway last
night, as the Forzday Racing League kicked off its fourth season of racing. We
didn’t have to wait long to get the excitement started either. Newcomer to the
series Bryan Dean, showed some moxy and raced his 63’ Beetle into the front of
the field early. This aided him in being able to avoid a terrific crash in the
early stages of the race on Turn 3. Carter Merkling, also a rookie in the
series (and late entry as well), forgot where the brake pedal was and plowed
his Lancia into Ethan Maestri, spinning his Beetle like a top and caused team
mate Paul Maestri to have to swerve like mad to avoid getting collected as
well.
Carter and Ethan would both finish way back in the field of 5, Bryan
turned in a solid 2nd place finish in his first heat as a rookie,
and Andrew Steppat finished on par with a heat victory.
With ‘first race’
jitters out of the way, things settled into clean solid racing for heats 2
& 3. Ethan recovered nicely to win heat number 2. Andrew would win heat 3
going away with a top lap on the night in B class racing, turning in a lap time
of 2:20.094.
On to A-Class racing
and the BAC Mono’s. After a few moments of discussion amongst race officials
concerning rookie Bryan Dean’s illegal entry in the race, we got started. Going
from B-Class street cars to these mini F1’s proved to be quite an adjustment for
the drivers, and the early racing in heat 1 was sketchy at best. Several
drivers swapped ends, and passes were often less than clean. In the end, Andrew would dominate the field
with two heat victories and screaming lap times. Both Maestri Bros. Racing
drivers experienced technical difficulties and posted last place finishes in
all three heats. This benefited rookie Carter Merkling, allowing him 4th
place finishes in all three heats. The closest race of the night was between
Bryan and Ethan, both averaged a 2.66 place finish in the class, but due to
Ethan’s 2:14.861 lap time in the third heat, he takes the position over Bryan’s
best lap of 2:16.139.
We’re off to Belgium
for the next event of the series at Circuit de Spa on November 5th.
And afterward, we’re gonna make waffles!
Results:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
