Yesterday evening Walter Lemmens / Rocky7up and our new member Joni Salomäki attended to the FragMaster FOX Friday event at Kyoto Ring GP Long.
It started at 21:35 with the qualification. There where 42 people attending to the qualification, and only 32 could actually race. Every driver got a clear 1 hotlap run. Joni was second to start, and Walter third. In the last chicane Joni trew away his laptime by spinning. Walter however managed to set an average laptime, not quiet close to his personal best. He set a 2:18.97. At that moment the second fastest time.
Minutes passed as a lot of people set their laptime. Some did not succesfully finish their lap and spun or crashed out. At the end Walter had dropped back to 28th. Not quite safe, as some drivers got a second chance. Luckily for Walter however, he ended 30th overall in the qualification results. Joni, on his second attempt, managed to set 28th.
After a short 5 minute break, the race went underway. In the first corner we see everyone smoothly and easy going through it, which gave Walter the oppertunity to take 28th position. Later on in the first lap we see some cars collide and spin. Walter took the bet, and went full throttle on the farest left side, and managed to be the lucky jumper and move up to 18th! Meanwhile Joni had crashed slighty and rejoined in 30th.
On lap 3 Joni has a very big crash on his own, and is forced to take a pitstop to fix his car, and drops back to 31st. On lap 5 we see that Walter has dropped back some pace and has left some faster people trough, he now is in 23rd position. On the oval part he lets Hydyne trough and drops back to 24th, however Hydyne directly tried to challenge another driver in the chicane, which caused him to have a wild spin in the middle of the racing line. Walter had no where to go, and slammed into him, causing him to spin off in the grass, and just not hitting other competitors. Now he has dropped back to 29th.
Walter just keeps on driving and gets into a nice fight with Majod. This fight will take on for about 10 laps, and we are now on lap 16. After some drivers crashed out, Walter is now in 26th. Now Walter is quite far ahead of Majod, and makes a pitstop. In the meanwhile we have seen Joni crashing out of the race. On lap 18 Walter is getting lapped by some of the leaders, the same happens in lap 19. From lap 20 Walter is basicly fighting Majod again. He is the closest behind for long, and the distance keeps getting smaller, biggest and smaller. On lap 24 Walter is 22nd and has a gap of 19.xx seconds to Majod. On lap 25 Walter has quite a moment coming out of the oval section... On the chicane he almost loses control, yet manages to keep it going.
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On lap 27 Walter has a quick spin going through the first sector. He quickly rejoined but couldn't help the fact that Majod now closed in to 7 seconds... However, Walter goes pedal to the metal and already pushed the gap to 9 seconds in the next sector. On lap 28 Walter is getting lapped by alot of people. Whilst coming out of the oval section, he has to take a wide line to let someone through... However, he goes to wide, touches the grass, gets a big slide, overcorrects and crashes really hard into the wall. This gives Majod to oppertunity to go past Walter.
Now Walter makes a long pitstop to fix damage and change tyres. On lap 31 Walter is in 19th position. After this he keeps getting really tired, it's getting late. With just one more small mistake by Walter, and a lot by others. It's the last lap for Walter, and the leaders have just finished, [CRO] Number is standing in the first sector without fuel. Walter is the hero of the day, by pushing Number all the way till over the finish. Walter crosses the finish line in 15th on lap 37 (40 for leaders.)
After a long day, we got a first positive finish for Team Rock Racing in a public event. Walter started 30th and finished 15th! Even though other people did not finish, he did, he was consistant, and even broke his personal best during the race.
We want to thank you for reading this race report for Walter Lemmens and Joni Salomäki.
Kind Regards,
Team Rock Racing
