Forzday Race Review - CotA - 1/28/2016

 The long season of the FRL came to its conclusion last night on the hair pin turns of Circuit of the America’s. The two classes ran with the highest number of participants this season with 10 different drivers making appearances on the track. One of those drivers was making his return to the FRL after a long hiatus, Tony Tyree and the #47 Geekly Retrospect team made their return to the track. Allen Ruff, a new driver to the FRL made his debut as well.

 In B-Class Vintage Imports, it was attack of the Beetles as most of the field drove one. Steppat Racing suffered a miscue early on as someone in the garage hit the “turn on everything” button and Andrew’s #1 Beetle went into safety mode, limiting his performance. Still, with the throttle mashed and flipping the sticks, he brought home a fifth place finish. Mikey Collins challenged Ethan Maestri early, but fell back in later stages finishing behind Ethan in second place. Things stayed pretty clean through turn one in the first heat, but as drivers settled into racing, things got more dicey in the second and third heats. Andrew benefited most from the chaos, jumping to early leads in these later two heats, and largely checking out for the rest of the race, running an average of 4 seconds faster than the rest of the field.

 A completed MBR may have returned to the track, but there was no love lost between brothers Paul and Ethan Maestri. Paul, making up for lost time on the track, misjudged a corner, turning his teammate in turn 13. He compounded the error further by trying to bump Ethan back into a straightline. The attempt resulted in the #3 Beetle careening out of the corner. Things snowballed from there as Ethan raced hard to make up lost ground and got into Chris Rader, who was having a solid night, and turned him into the front straight outside wall. Chris would have trouble recovering and would finish P6. Ethan fought back to P4  and Paul capped off a great class run in P3.

The conclusion of the season means the end of A-Class Mono racing, which is a real shame. Some of the best racing in FRL history has been in these cars, and they would not disappoint here at CotA either. In the first heat, rivals Andrew Steappat and Ethan Maestri ran three nail biting laps as Andrew worked on an opening for the lead but Ethan held tenaciously to P1. Andrew got held up a bit in the second heat, trying to get to P2 around a hard running Mikey Collins. In the end, it would allow Ethan a comfortable 1 second victory over Steppat. However, disaster struck the #3 Mono yet again as electrical problems at the outset of Heat 3 sidelined Ethan’s BAC and he would have to settle for P7, leaving Andrew to battle Mikey and take P1 and the FRL Season 4 Championship overall.

 As we take a look at series points, as mentioned, Andrew Steppat is our FRL S4 Champ with 273 points.  Ethan Maestri brings home his 3^rd P2 podium spot in points with 245. Rookie Bryan Dean wrapped up his Rookie Championship back at Brands Hatch and finishes on the podium overall in P3 for the series with 179 points. Rookie Chris Rader had a strong season with 121 points in P4 overall. And another rookie, Mikey Collins, made his presence felt through the latter half of the season and rounds out the top 5 with 120 points – almost stealing Chris Rader’s position. A large mix of veterans and newcomers finish out the rest of the point field. This was the largest number of drivers to participate in the FRL in any season, with13 different drivers participating. Congratulations to Andrew Steppat again. We hope all that raced enjoyed themselves. We look forward now to the start of the inaugural season of the Forzday Endurance Championship this weekend. Stay tuned for word on Season 5 of the FRL in the coming months.

Results:

B-Class
Driver	Position (Avg.)	Best Time	Points
Andrew Steppat	2.33	2:22.637	20
Ethan Maestri	2.66	2:27.539	16
Mikey Collins	2.66	2:27.711	13
Paul Maestri	2.66	2:28.953	10
Chris Rader	5.00	2:32.022	8
Carter Merkling	5.66	2:37.147	6
Allen Ruff	7.00	2:38.077	4
Tony Tyree	8.00	2:46.676	2
A-Class
Andrew Steppat	1.66	2:18.599	20
Mikey Collins	2.66	2:20.605	16
Ethan Maestri	3.00	2:18.599	13
Paul Maestri	3.66	2:19.808	10
Taylor Carpenter	4.66	2:22.534	8
Allen Ruff	5.33	2:26.164	6
Tony Tyree	6.66	2:31.929	4

Series Points:	B-Class	A-Class	Total
Andrew Steppat	133	140	273
Ethan Maestri	122	123	245
Bryan Dean	98	81	179
Chris Rader	60	61	121
Mikey Collins	57	63	120
Carter Merkling	32	26	58
Paul Maestri	20	18	38
Ross Carpenter	18	12	30
Taylor Carpenter	0	16	16
Ross Merkling	8	8	16
Allen Ruff	4	6	10
Tony Tyree	2	4	6
Tim Adkins	6	0	6