It was a stunning night for racing at the Daytona International Speedway for the fifth and final round of the FRL's FASCAR series. Having already secured another championship win, Andrew Steppat started from pole in this race and set a blistering pace early. Fresh off his win at Indianapolis, the #3 Toyota driven by Ethan Maestri held the outside line adjacent Andrew's #01 Chevy, but eventually fell into line behind Steppat. Seth Jensen quickly wheeled his #06 Ford into third place and soon found himself in the lead.
Further back, Nicholas Hargrove in his #5 Toyota, Ghabe Stouffer in the #2 Chevy and Blake Wild in the #9 Chevy all struggled to keep pace with the Top 5 cars. Travis Billingsley started well in the #18 Toyota, but got shuffled out of line by Seth Jenson and lost touch with the lead pack of cars. He would fall back to Paul Maestri in the #7 Toyota where they would link up in a draft and hoped to make ground toward the leaders. They would soon be joined by Ethan in the #3 and together they would try to draft forward, but the horsepower of the front two cars was too much to overcome.
While there were no caution flags for any of the 100 laps of the race, there was certainly some drama for racers brushing the wall and having trouble getting out of the pit lane. In the end, Seth Jensen stick flicked his way to victory, once again being pushed along by Andrew Steppet. In a late push, Travis Billingsley got around Paul Maestri to secure P3 on the night.
Fifty points for the race winner would certainly snug things up in the points series. Seth found himself with a total haul of 182 points over the course of the series, edging him past the 2017 Fall Champion, Paul Maestri, into fourth overall in the points. Not a bad showing for a driver in only his second series in the FRL. Travis Billingsley, having never finished worse than fourth in any of the five races, claimed third overall in the series. Ethan Maestri, despite two victories in the season, come in second overall. Andrew Steppat claimed his first and only victory in FASCAR at Road America, but with a slew of second place finishes the rest of the series, took the points championship in an impressive way.
Attention in the FRL turns back to road racing and the TCR series which continues from Dubai on Sunday, March 14th.
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