A glitched start would break up the field initially, but good racing would unfold nonetheless
Travis Billingsley made a good start for the season, taking pole position in qualifying. At the drop of the green flag he quickly put the #18 Mazda RX7 out in front of the field. Andrew Steppat quickly feel into line behind him. However, the rest of the field was disrupted by two stalled cars on the grid. A poor qualifying effort put both the #3 & #33 RX7's behind the #5 Mercury of Nick Hargrove. A start glitch caused Nick to stall on the line, forcing everyone behind him to swerve to miss. The race stewards inexplicably failed to call a restart and the broken field lurched on.
Ethan Maestri in the #3 MBR machine was able to recover most of the ground yielded to the top two fairly early and joined them in a pitched battle for top spot. In lap 4, the #001 of Andrew Steppat over-cooked Turn 1 and slid out to yield P2 to Ethan. Ethan was nearly able to pull alongside his #18 teammate in the next corner, but checked up in the brake zone and quickly fell back to P3. He would make another run at Steppat's Merkur, passing him exiting the Bus Stop and into the NASCAR Turn 3. Two laps later, Ethan botched the braking zone into Turn 1 and tagged the inside tire wall, bouncing the Mazda sideways and giving up P2 to Andrew for good.
Positions 1 thru 4 were up for grabs early
Paul Maestri in the #33 was logging early laps and settling in for an easy run to a P4 finish, but on lap 5, swung wide into the tire barrier exiting the International Horseshoe, damaging his right front. The suspension and brake damage would send him to the pits early allowing Tony Tyree and Nick Hargrove to move up the grid. Nick recovered well from the glitched start and eventually would overtake Tony Tyree's #47 Mustang for P4.
As pit stops cycled, the front of the field looked as it had in the beginning, Travis Billingsley in the lead, chased closely by Andrew Steppat. With less than 6 laps to go, Travis bobbled several corners allowing the veteran champion to close on him. Andrew's Merkur got the power down faster exiting the horseshoe and made the pass for the lead. Travis made a couple more attempts to pass, but just couldn't make them stick. Andrew crossed the line to win the first round of the new series.
Paul Maestri would recover well after making a second pit stop late, catching a hard charging Nick Hargrove and passing him late in the race to secure a fourth place finish. Tony Tyree would finish P6 and Ghabe Stauffer, in the #2 Mazda RX7, also suffered a delayed start and finished in P7.
One of the biggest changes heading into the series beginning was the performance balancing amongst the FRL drivers. Would the balance be right? Would better racing result? For the first 9 laps, the top three were separated by only two seconds at most, a change from past races. While too early to say it works for everyone, the general impression is that the FRL is at least heading the series in the right direction. More racing will need to be done to get a definitive answer. The series rolls on to Lime Rock for the 50 laps of the Chicane circuit on March 10th. There we will continue to try and get a clearer picture of how this championship series will develop.
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FINAL RESULTS
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POINTS
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ANDREW STEPPAT
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21
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TRAVIS BILLINGSLEY
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18
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ETHAN MAESTRI
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16
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PAUL MAESTRI
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14
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NICK HARGROVE
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12
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TONY TYREE
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10
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GABE
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8
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DRIVER
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SERIES POINTS
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ANDREW STEPPAT
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21
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TRAVIS BILLINGSLEY
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18
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ETHAN MAESTRI
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16
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PAUL MAESTRI
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14
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NICK HARGROVE
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12
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TONY TYREE
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10
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GABE
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8
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