The International 100 was the second round of the LFSCART Light Winter Series 2010. Overall it was the second road course round in LFSCART Light history after the Jamaica 130 three months earlier. Also it was the first time the Superpole Session was used in a League race. The race took place on the track of Westhill International reversed.
In Qualifying pool 1 the Something Awful drivers Randy Young and Travis Mehlinger and the Concept Racing entry of Reint Jan Hoiting reached the top 3. Young's 1:34.41was the fastest lap of the Qualifying. Adam Pettigrew (Concept Racing) who was pole sitter in the season opener at Kyoto only reached the 4th position in this pool and started 7th in the grid. Prior to the race he was confident to reach at least the Superpole, but he missed the time of his team mate by 0.04 seconds. In Qualifying pool 2 a third car of Something Awful qualified for the Superpole, Simon Murphy in the #76 followed by the two Tiger Express Motorsport cars of the newcomer Nicolas Vallée and the team owner Yann Laprevotte. In the Superpole session the newcomer surprised everyone. Vallée drove the fastest lap and earned the pole position infront of Mehlinger, Murphy, Young, Hoiting and Laprevotte.
The race was scheduled for 32 laps and one pace lap. Although the formation was not the best, the stater waved the green flag. After the race the race director said, that he feared the field would get nervous if the start was weaved off because it was already started behind the schedule due to problems with the live broadcast. At the exit of turn 1 Vallée stayed in the lead. Pettigrew who started 7th passed already 4 cars and was in fourth position, side by side with Young and closely followed by Murphy. At the exit of the fast chicane, Vallée left the track, loosing 5 positions. The same did Jarl Teien in his Norwegian #6 car. When sorting back in behind hoiting he oversaw the Serbian Chromed Pistons #81 of Igor Fermevc, who spun off track because of the contact. Trying to avoid a bigger chrash Ori Motorson (Jochen Rindt Racing) and Lims Chebbi (Tiger Express Motorsport) left the tarmac. Unfortunately they couldn't get around the #81 and made contact. As the next corner was a left hander, Chebbi crossed the track. Luckily he wasn't hit by another car. In the same situation Fermevc made contact with the #24 of Mike Barry and sent him into the gravel trap. All involved cars could keep on racing. Teien got a 30 seconds penalty added to the results afterwards. Big winner of Lap 1 actions was Pettigrew.
Because of slip streaming on the fast and long straights the field divided rapidly into different battle groups. At the end of the second racing lap Murphy passed Pettigrew at the end of the start-finish-straight and Young did the same on the back straight entering the chicane, which caused all the trouble on lap 1. Entering the final two corners the points leader Murphy passed his team mate Mehlinger and got into leading position and again Murphy was followed by Young, this time at the end of the start finish straight. On lap 4 Murphy overshoot the first hairpin and went through the grass. His two teammates and Pettigrew could pass him. So the Concept driver was again in the Something Awful sandwich. And on the backstraight, Pettigrew found a way around Young, so he was in second again. Because the speed was not that fast the following group of Laprevotte, Spencer Rose in the fourth Something Awful car, Vallée and Hoiting approached the leaders. Barry became the first overlapped car on the same lap. The American spun off when he was shown the blue flags. With lap 6 the leading group split. Mehlinger spun exiting the first hairpin, loosing 8 positions. This made the door wide open for Pettigrew who was now in lead. He now started to pull away. The LFSCART Light points leader also spun one lap later again at the scene of first lap's chaos. He fell back to 7th position. All of the sudden, when the pitwindow was opened, The French newcomer Nicolas Vallée was back on the bronze medal position. Young meanwhile kept the gap to Pettigrew between 1 and 2 seconds.
On lap 9 the pit lane opened and racing calmed down a bit.. Skrajūns Drambliox (Fast Animals), who pitted one lap earlier, got a drive through penalty for blend line violation. Teien in the Norwegian car was the first one to pit in the window. After contact with a wall Mehringer down in 10th position entered pitlane. However, during his pit stop he timed out. Leaving 15 running cars on the track. Racing setteled down and positions were kept for several laps. On lap 18 Young made his compulsory pit stop. Unfortunately he was too fast in pit lane and got a Drive-Through-Penalty. This gave Pettigrew a very good opportunity to play out his strategy and to get a big enough gap to stay in front after his pit stop without risking too much. After the penalty Young was 7th. Eimantas Kasperiunas (#18, SimRacing Lithauania Team) repeated the mistake of his landsman Marcinkevicius and got his personal Drive-Through-Penalty. With Zoltan Palatinus (Serbian Chromed Pistons), who pitted on lap 20, all but one car have served their obligatory pit stop. That car was the #10 of Concept Racing who still led the field. Palatinus should become a race deciding factor. On lap 23, one lap before the window closed, the leader came in for his stop. He exited the pit road with 8 seconds in front of Murphy. Murphy could see the Concept racing car at the end of the straight and he could close up a bit. But on lap 25 the tough luck stroke: Palatinus wanted to open up the inside line to let Murphy pass. Murphy however decided to overlap the backmarker on the outside line. The two of them collided in the fast chicane after the hairpin. Both had to retire. Young who became the new runner-up was too far behind to be a real danger of Pettigrews victory.
While the top two podium spots seemed to be decided, a battle for the 3rd position set up between the second Concept Racing car and the pole sitter. They had a hard battle and the positions changed every few corners. Rose benefited from this. He could minimize the gap and became bigger and bigger in the mirror of the two fighters. On lap 28 he became part of the battle. But only 2 laps later he was out of the decision about the bronze medal again, ironically directly after he could get a few meters between him and Hoiting. He overshot the hairpin and got onto the grass with the left rear wheel and spun because of this. Vallée took over the 3rd position as Hoiting had to go over the grass to avoid contact with the spinning Something Awful car. Hoiting was not able to catch the Frenchman and finished 4th. Pettigrew won the International 100 with an incredible race pace. Young on second and the E-Team member Vallée, who starts for Tiger Express Motorsport in LFSCART Light, on third.
With this victory Pettigrew takes over the points lead with 85 points in front of Murphy with 66 and Laprevotte 62. In the teams ranking Concept racing also takes over the lead with 157, 23 points ahead of Something Awful and 42 points in front of Tiger Express Motorsport.
Full Qualifying and Race results under
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=62165.
Full championship standings under
http://spreadsheets.google.com ... Olyp7ekd0RV8Ynw&gid=0.
Next round is on November 6th at Aston Club for the Aston 140. All further information under
http://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=265
