The FEC arrives in the sunny and verdant hills of Virginia to race event #7 at Virginia International Raceway. The evening began with qualifying which, Andrew Steppat the eventual pole winner, would barely arrive in time for. Bryan Dean would suffer failure during qualifying and would have to start at the rear. Danny McClain suffered from a poor setup and left the track to sort out his setup.
Green flag at VIR
With front row set with another lock-out by Nissan, the green flag waved. Andrew led his 370Z nimbly through Turn 1 and set sail for another victory. Behind him, things immediately got dicey. Travis Billingsley, starting from third, downshifted too far into the hairpin of Turn 1 and got loose, washing up into Ethan Maestri and forcing him out of the throttle to recover. As the group was exiting the turn, Bryan Dean was forced to switch lanes quickly to get around Tony Tyree, but Ethan was still recovering his car and Bryan made contact with the stricken Nissan, punting it sideways. Tony and Bryan would make contact with each other as they cleared Ethan, but escaped serious damage. Allen Ruff would have no where to go as the #3 370Z spun around the track into his BMW's line. The two would end up in the grass and tire barrier of Turn 2.
Ethan Maestri drifts toward Turn 2 and Mike Webb has a big moment out in the grass
This would start a long cycle of big off's for a majority of the field. Heading into the south end of the track, Mike Webb would get his Aston Martin off into the grass at very high speed. He held onto it fairly well, but could not get slowed fast enough before contact with the barrier put him on his top.
The field of nine cars settled into endurance mode as drivers struggled with the tight quarters and high speed undulating raceway. After the first round of pits, Andrew Steppat had a healthy lead over the field and looked to have an easy victory ahead. But, with about 17 laps to go, connection issues sidelined the points leader and he was forced from the track. This would change the complexion of the race for the top 3 drivers. Travis Billingsley was having a remarkable race. The stability of the Aston Martin was working in his favor. With Andrew behind the wall, the possibility of scoring Aston Martin's first victory of the season lay before him. Bryan Dean was finding the groove for this track about mid-way and now he felt he could close on the new leader. He would eventually do so, but still had a few close calls on the track which slowed his advance and a fuel thirsty Porsche would hamper his efforts as well. He would set a blistering fast la time, and eventually would close on Travis with three laps to go. However, a final fuel stop to reach the end would bring his hopes of a victory to naught. Travis Billingsely brings home his first win of this FEC season.
Andrew Steppat had things well in hand from race start
Ethan Maestri would suffer several bad missteps on track but would recover well enough, finishing third. P4 would got to Tony Tyree who had an interesting back-and-forth race all evening with teammate Matthew Smith. Matthew would have one too many mistakes and would have to settle for P5.
Bryan Dean (Porsche 911) would make a hard charge up to Travis (Vantage) late in the race, but time and fuel worked against him
With several regular drivers unable to make the race, the points series has now been further mixed up again. Tony Tyree currently sits in fifth place overall in the points. With the shakeup on the track at the front, Andrew Steppat still has a commanding lead overall, but a tight battle for P2-P4 is shaping up for Ethan, Tavis and Bryan respectively. The series heads fro the left coast for the 8th event of the FEC at Laguna Seca on June 25th.
