Race of Italy - Recap Part Deux

The reversed grid order lines up for Heat 2 at Monza

With the servers running smoothly on Monday night, the FRL continued its Race of Italy at Monza. Some of Sunday night’s Heat 1 participants were unable to make it for the delayed second heat. But one driver, Owen Henderson, who missed Sunday night’s race was able to join in the second on Monday.

Drew Dilbeck would take the green flag from the front and held the lead through the first chicane. Down the stretch to the second chicane, Drew would be passed by a hard-charging Andrew Steppat. After a frustrating first heat, he benefitted from race start shenanigans off the line and got ahead of the crowd early. After a flying pass around Drew into the second chicane he would settle into a commanding lead for most of the heat.

Travis Billingsley would get a clean start as well and followed Andrew into P2 early on. He would steadily lose ground to Andrew, but would keep pace ahead of Ethan Maestri. Ethan would have to swerve hard off the line to avoid crashing into a stationary Nicholas Hargrove. He and Bryan Dean looked to be locked into an early battle, but Bryan would swing wide into Turn 6 and crash into Drew Dilbeck. Drew had slid off track and was trying to gingerly merge back into traffic. Bryan would suffer heavy damage here, even spinning a second time before eventually limping to an early pitstop.   

Paul Maestri, who finished strong in the first heat, would start from the rear of the field serving a self-induced penalty for blocking in Heat 1. He would  suffer from discomfort during this race and would not be able to advance on the leaders as he had before, eventually winding up in P6.

Nicholas Hargrove and Tony Tyree would have difficulty at various points of the race and would finish in P7 and P8 respectively. However, despite a P7 finish, Nicholas moves to extend his lead over rookie rival Matthew Smith, who was unable to make the second heat.

The race of the evening was between Ethan Maestri and Travis Billingsley. Ethan’s Audi was able to tail the #18 Volvo for 11 laps. Travis would bobble a corner and Ethan would close, then Ethan would slide out a bit and Travis would extend his lead. But the two cars seemed to have a tether with about a 1000 ft. limit between them. Neither driver seemed able to separate or close much from the other. That was until Ethan’s #85 S3 needed to stop for fuel. This allowed Travis some breathing room, and a few laps later, he inherited the lead when Andrew’s #001 BMW had to stop as well. Travis would win Heat 2, posting a solid victory at Monza. Andrew would finish second in the heat and with an overall P2 as well. Ethan would benefit from Bryan’s unfortunate absence at the front, and would finish P3, with an overall 4th place finish.

The points races become even more interesting after this 6th event. With two more races left at Switzerland and Road America, the points lead is still up for grabs as Travis closes to just 5 points behind Andrew Steppat. Bryan gains a few points over Ethan with a P3 overall finish, but only 6 points separate 3rd from 4th. The rookie battle between Nicholas Hargrove and Matthew Smith is still undecided as well. The series heads over the Alps into Switzerland for the 7th event at the Alps Festival circuit.

Race of Italy - Results

Heat 1 Results			Heat 2 Results
Driver:	Fastest Lap (Bonus):		Driver:	Fastest Lap (Bonus):		Team Points:
Travis Billingsley	1:50.707		Travis Billingsley	1:50.341		Apex Racing	271
Bryan Dean	1:50.183 (+1)		Andrew Steppat	1:49.260 (+3)		Millenium Motorsports	59
Andrew Steppat	1:49.935		Ethan Maestri	1:50.882
Paul Maestri	1:50.170 (+2)		Bryan Dean	2:00.990		Privateer Points:
Ethan Maestri	1:50.521		Drew Dilbeck	1:54.570		Eight Six Racing	87
Daniel Fleischman	1:51.523		Paul Maestri	1:50.938		Independant Racing	69
Tony Tyree	1:55.478		Nicholas Hargrove	1:54.405		Option 13 Racing	44
Matthew Smith	1:53.885		Tony Tyree	1:54.832		Nicholas Hargrove	27
Nicholas Hargrove	1:54.239		Owen Henderson	1:57.773		Matthew Smith	22
Drew Dilbeck	1:59.056					Daniel Fleischman	21
Nate Turner	2:07.194*					Allen Ruff	4
						Rookie Points:
* = lap infraction (dirty)						Nicholas Hargrove	27
						Matthew Smith	22
						Tom Henderson	2
						Owen Henderson	2
Points Totals:	* - Bonus		Series Points Overall:
Driver:	Points:		Driver:	Points:		Heat Wins:
Travis Billingsley	25		Andrew Steppat	138		Andrew Steppat	4
Andrew Steppat	21*		Travis Billingsley	133		Travis Billingsley	3
Bryan Dean	16*		Bryan Dean	106		Ethan Maestri	2
Ethan Maestri	12		Ethan Maestri	100		Paul Maestri	1
Paul Maestri	12*		Paul Maestri	87		Bryan Dean	1
Drew Dilbeck	8		Drew Dilbeck	53
Tony Tyree	6		Tony Tyree	34
Nicholas Hargrove	4		Nicholas Hargrove	27
Daniel Fleischman	2		Matthew Smith	22
Matthew Smith	1		Daniel Fleischman	21
Owen Henderson			Allen Ruff	14
Nate Turner			Carter Merkling	4
			Tom Henderson	2
			Owen Henderson	2
			Nate Turner	0

Race of Italy - Recap (Part 1)

  

                                                 The start of Round 6 at Monza

Round 6 of the FRL’s WTCC series arrives at the elegantly simple lines of one of the oldest tracks in the world, Monza. The Race of Italy promised high speed and fast action in the chicanes as the FRL’s top drivers look to make the most of the time left to move up the points standings.

Heat 1 began a little behind schedule as connectivity glitches made getting started a difficult task. Once on the track though, the green flag flew and Travis Billingsley made an immediate move to the front of the field of eleven cars. Everyone moved cleanly through the first chicane and the race was on. As they headed into Turn 6, Andrew Steppat drifted wide into the corner allowing Ethan Maestri to move alongside for the pass. Ethan drifted up the track on exit and he and Andrew’s BMW got together, sending Andrew into the gravel and back to 6th position. Bryan Dean was able to make the most of the fracas in front of him and pulled alongside Ethan in Turn 7, making the pass. As he maneuvered across the track, Ethan attempted to cross Bryan’s bumper and position his Audi outside of the #808 S3, but he didn’t have quite enough room and sent Bryan into the grass.

Andrew would climb back to 5th position and began to battle with Paul Maestri for P4.  Paul made his Audi as wide as possible in the straights, and with both machines closely matched in horsepower, Andrew could not pull alongside and make a pass stick. He changed tactics to try and out-brake Paul into the corners, but Paul would check him up at every opportunity. Finally, heading into the Turn 1 chicane, Andrew late-braked and got alongside Paul. Paul moved over onto the #001 BMW and tapped him, getting the Apex Racing car loose and sent him careening into Ethan Maestri, who was just ahead and making his approach into the chicane. All three would scramble to collect themselves and get out of the chicane. Paul made it through first, followed by Andrew, Ethan would lose out in this battle and drop to P5. Andrew would finally get around Paul after the pit cycle and established himself in P3 for the heat.

                    Daniel Fleischman and Drew Dilbeck collide into the second chicane.

Further afield, Drew Dilbeck was setting up for hard braking into the second chicane of Turns 4 & 5 when he lost control of his Audi S3 and plowed hard into the back of Daniel Fleischman, turning him around and backing him into the tire barriers at the chicane entrance. Daniel would have to fight hard to recover. Matthew Smith and Nicholas Hargrove would run close to one another for much of this race with Matthew pulling up to, but not quite able to make the pass stick against Nicholas. In later laps, Matthew would lock up hard and hit the tire barrier getting into the Turn 1 chicane, briefly ending his run on Hargrove’s #5 Toyota. After a round of pit stops for the field, Matthew was able to bypass Nicholas and claim P8 from his rookie rival.

 Daniel Fleischman & Tony Tyree suffered some early setbacks, but would settle into the flow of the race and advanced to P6 & 7, respectively. Travis and Bryan would do battle for much of the race at the front, burt in the end, Travis did a masterful job of keeping the #18 Volvo under control and would win the heat over Bryan. The second heat would have to wait though as connectivity issues worsened and the event had to be ‘red flagged’ until Monday night when the second heat would determine the final order for the Race of Italy.

        Travis Billingsley would go on to win Heat 1 of the Race of Italy

FASCAR Kicks Off Mini-Series in 2017

With enough FRL drivers in possession of the NASCAR Expansion for Forza 6, the FRL has decided to implement a short mini-season on Thursday nights beginning Feb. 23rd and running through March 2017.

 Rules will be simple with rolling starts determined by random grid order. Localized caution will be called out but no full-course cautions will be implemented.

 Cars will be stock R-833 (as purchased) however, custom liveries are encouraged.

 FRL driver numbers must be displayed on sides of car and roof.

 Air pressure for tires and aero downforce are the only adjustments that will be permissible for each car.

 We will run this mini-season for five weeks on Thursday nights. Each race will be no more than 50 laps in length. Most races will be started and finished inside of 1-hour.

 Points awarded as follows:

1st - 15                 A bonus point will be awarded to each driver that leads a lap.
2nd -14                 A bonus point will be awarded to the driver that leads the most laps.
3rd - 13
4th - 12
5th - 11
6th - 10
7th -  9
8th -  8
9th -  7
10th- 6
11th - 5
12th - 4
13th - 3
14th - 2
15th - 1

FRL One-Off Picks Chase Winner

 Thursday 11/18/2016 - Last night, 6 FRL drivers picked from four of the NASCAR Chase drivers and ran with a few drivitars at Miami, Homestead Speedway to see if they could pick a winner for this years NASCAR Chase Championship run.

 Drew Dilbeck, in an alternate Shell paint livery for the #22 Ford Fusion driven by Cup driver Joey Lagano, led from flag-to-flag, winning the One-Off Challenge and delivers the prediction that Joey Lagano as this years NASCAR Champion.

NASCAR One-Off Challenge - The Chase

 It's that time for another champion to be crowned after another year of racing in NASCAR. To commemorate this season's finale this coming Sunday, the FRL will attempt to pick the winner for this season's Chase by having a special One-Off event this Thursday night.

 The event will be 25 laps at Homestead in stock cars representing each of the 4 Chase drivers.

Entries so far:

Travis Billingsley - #18 Kyle Busch
Ethan Maestri - #19 Carl Edwards
Drew Dilbeck - #22 Joey Logano
Nicholas Hargrove #22 Joey Logano
Tony Tyree - #48 Jimmy Johnson
Owen Henderson - #48 Jimmiy Johnson

We'll announce the winner on Friday and see if that driver can claim the championship in Homestead this coming Sunday.

The Takeaway - Nurburgring

 It was widely known going into the Race of Germany that the outcome of the event would have a major impact on the WTCC series for Season 5. True to form, the race delivered surprising results and has changed the complexion of the series from top to bottom.

 First off, the projected winner was presumed to be the person that could turn the fastest laps around the 13 mile course. In the week leading up to the event, the driver at the top of the rivals leader board was nearly a full 4 seconds faster than his nearest competitor. Andrew Steppat was surely the top favorite to win the "Lord of the Ring" title. The big variable would be whether or not the start grid would be inverted or not. The dice was rolled and the grid was reversed. This would put a wrinkle in Andrew's ability to dominate the race from the front. The other variable at play here was just how difficult it is to turn a single clean lap, much less 5 of them back-to-back. Andrew was unable to do so, neither was anyone else. But most surprising was the fact that the driver to have the fewest mistakes over the 65 miles of the event was none other than Bryan Dean. Having just defected from the now defunct Razorback Motorsports team, Bryan turned 5 near perfect laps and was able to lead most of the race unchallenged. Truly a dominant performance that FRL drivers are unaccustomed too from someone whose name doesn't start with Andrew. This win boosts him from a relatively remote P5 in points all the way up to third place, now two points ahead of former teammate Ethan Maestri. The points battle for third is now set for a real showdown for the final three events.

 Travis Billingsley battled hard for P2 and the double points he earns for the effort brings him within striking distance of Andrew's points lead. With only 9 points between the two leaders, it will be interesting to see if he can carry the momentum going forward and be a continued threat to Andrew's championship run. Drew Dilbeck comes in at P6 for the event and becomes one of only two drivers to score at least a sixth place finish in all five events so far. He single handedly keeps Millenium Motorsports in the team points for this event as well.

 Matthew Smith makes continued progress in his bid for a rookie points win. He benefits from a solid P7 finish here and with double points, closes the gap to just two points separating him from rookie points leader, Nicholas Hargrove.

 It's always nice to see a shake-up in the status quo. Bryan Dean benefits from this last one, but there is still a lot of racing to do before this season comes to an end. The points near the top have narrowed to their closest margin since Yas Marina. Who will make a move to the front now? Will the status quo reassert itself? We'll see with our next race, at Monza, at the end of the month.