Steppat Back On Top At Road America

 It looked to be an extension of Laguna Seca when the FRL field of 6 cars took to the track at Elkhart Lake last Sunday night. Ethan Maestri set the fastest time in qualifying and early indications were that the two MBR drivers present for the event at Road America stood a good chance of making an interesting race at the front of the field.

 Once the green flag waved, things quickly equalized and the status quo returned to normalcy. Ethan Maestri suffered a stall at the line while the rest of the field got to speed. Andrew Steppat in the #001 Merkur and the #18 RX7 of Travis Billingsley quickly negated the Pole Position of the #3. Ethan would fight past Travis in the second lap and soon set his sights on Andrew, who struggled in the early laps of the race. Ethan would line up to pass under the bridge at Turn 6 but couldn't quite make the pass stick. Then a warning light appeared on Ethan's dash that spelled possible disaster for his race. Another battery failure loomed on the #3's horizon. Ethan would try to nurse the Mazda around to at least lap 5 of the 21 lap event, but several lock-up's and a last turn off track venture assured he would lose the front of the field for the rest of the night.

Early indications were for a tight battle at the front

 Back in P4-P6, a most interesting race developed early on. Drew Dilbeck, Tony Tyree and Ghabe Stouffer traded positions and kept nose-to-tail for many of the early laps. Tony would eventually take P4 when Drew had an off on Turn 11. Drew would pit early and utilized his fresh tires to gain back ground on Tony Tyree. Meanwhile, Tony had his rear-view mirror full of a hard charging Ghabe Stouffer. Ghabe would do a fair job maintaining contact with Tony's #47 Mustang throughout, and at the end of the night he was able to pounce on a stricken Tony Tyree to steal P5 in a last lap pass when Tyree slipped off the track.

Ultimately, the real entertainment for the race was to see who would get P4

 Travis would fail to capitalize on a shaky start for Andrew, eventually falling some 10 seconds off the leader. Andrew, for his part, found his rhythm late in the race setting fastest lap of the event and claiming his fourth win of the season. The series moves to the penultimate round at Road Atlanta on May 5th.

Road America Results:
1. Andrew Steppat - 21 points
2. Travis Billingsley - 18 points
3. Ethan Maestri - 16 points
4. Drew Dilbeck - 14 points
5. Ghabe Stouffer - 12 points
6. Tony Tyree - 10 points


Series Standings after 5 events:
1. Andrew Steppat - 102 points
2. Travis Billingsley - 84 points
3. Ethan Maestri - 79 points
4. Drew Dilbeck - 62 points
5. Ghabe Stouffer - 56 points
6. Paul Maestri - 46 points
7. Tony Tyree - 36 points
8. Nicholas Hargrove - 22 points
9. Matthew Smith - 12 points