Rony Kronpušs and Race Green Autosports takes championship titles in LFASCART Series 2013!
Allthough there were no real messages during summer about our progress,the summer brought us some very good results - driver's and team's championship titles of LFSCART Series 2013! Despite not being the fastest driver in this competition,dedication and persistance to race with his favourite LFS car brought Rony Kronpušs the Driver's Championship title,bringing an example to everyone that also an average racer can accomplish good results,if he finishes what he starts! Also rest of the team was dedicated and put up good results with at least 2 drivers scoring points in every round except the unlucky round 7,making a serious bid for team's title already after half of the season.
Season started relatively well for Rony,who finished 10th in 27 car field in round 1,despite being criticized for being slow ("the snail" and for wrong tyre choice. In round 2 the newly signed member Thorsten took the first top5 finish of the season,while Rony failed in last lap pass for 10th place. Thorsten was also the highest ranked finisher in rounds 3 and 4 with 6th and 7th place finishes,while Matīss helped out in round 3 to score 7th place points,Rony had a disastrous race finishing last at Westhill.
The big one - Kyoto 500 saw 4 Race Green Autosports cars starting the race with Patrick on pole position,which is the first ever top level racing pole position for the team. Even if 3 fastest cars were between top 6 at one point of the race,unfortunately only Rolands reached the finish,as both Patrick and Rony have been involved in incidents,which sent cars out of track,but Thorsten just retired after unlucky race.
The race between both oval rounds compensated the misfortunes,as all 3 cars finished in top 5 with Thorsten taking teams first podium finish in LFSCART by finishing 2nd. The reversed oval round came with a chance for Rony and Thorsten to take over championship lead,which never happened,as Thorsten never attended the race (due disliking oval races),but Rony crashed out very early. But championship lead was eventually taken by Rony,as he drove a solid race in round 8 with 2nd podium finish for team,where Rolands finished 6th to secure teams champions title,Thorsten blew his chance to take championship lead by being uncautios in caution where he hit crashed car and rolled.
Despite Rony being sure that some of other championship contenders will overtake him in points,the round was still a nailbiter - with Arttu stealing race lead from championship contenders and Rony having good pace to climb up the field,looked like the race for title is not over yet,but then Rony received a very questionable penalty for [apparently] avoidable incident with Steven Martin. After that the race for title seemed to be over,but Rony put together all his motivation and raced as fast as he could to save at least 2nd or 3rd place in championship and finished 7th (with Matīss finishing 4th to take 7th top 5 finish of the season for the team),which after points recalculation was enough to be crowned the LFSCART Series 2013 Driver's Champion!
Thorsten Ulrich finished the season in 8th place in standings,Matīss Linde took 14th with only 3 finished races,Rolands Kampars had a very inactive season with 3 starts and finished tied 16th,but taking part in 1 round put Patrick Hall in 47th place. Team's latvian drivers were also the key to put Latvia in 3rd place in Nation's Cup,as there were no other latvian drivers to take part.
Team's drivers performance during season:
Round 1 - Grand Prix of Aston (AS6R)
_10. Rony Kronpušs (q 23rd)
_15. Rolands Kampars (q 17th)
Round 2 - English Grand Prix (BL1)
__5. Thorsten Ulrich (q 6th)
_11. Rony Kronpušs (q 14th)
Round 3 - Westhill Grand Prix (WE1)
__6. Thorsten Ulrich (q 7th)
__7. Matīss Linde (q 14th)
_13. Rony Kronpušs (q 11th)
Round 4 - Speedweeks Road 250K (K32R)
__7. Thorsten Ulrich (q 9th)
__9. Rony Kronpušs (q 12th)
Round 5 - Kyoto 500 (KY1)
__5. Rolands Kampars (q 11th)
_15. Thorsten Ulrich (q 29th) - retired
_16. Rony Kronpušs (q 7th) - crashed out of track
_18. Patrick Hall (q 1st) - crashed out of track
Round 6 - City 250 (SO5R)
__2. Thorsten Ulrich (q 4th)
__4. Matīss Linde (q 5th)
__5. Rony Kronpušs (q 9th)
Round 7 - Clockwise Challenge (KY1R)
__9. Matīss Linde (q 6th) - retired,no points
_11. Rony Kronpušs (q 4th) - crashed out of track,no points
Round 8 - Jamaican Grand Prix (FE3R)
__3. Rony Kronpušs (q 7th)
__6. Rolands Kampars (q 11th)
_10. Thorsten Ulrich (q 2nd) - rolled car,no points
Round 9 - Grand Prix Japan (KY2)
__4. Matīss Linde (q 5th)
__7. Rony Kronpušs (q 12th)
LFSCART Light Series. The smaller brother of the FO8 league unfortunately had to have last 2 rounds cancelled due to lack of interest from drivers,so after 7 round season Rony Kronpušs finished in 3rd place in driver's championship,but Race Green Autosports took runner-up position in team's championship,conceding only to dominating Team Vires.
Turbo Trophy. Matīss Linde had a very successful season in this TBO class league as he finished 3rd in overall standings with 4 top 5 finishes,being the best of FXO drivers. Race Green Autosports ended in 5th place in team's championship with only 2 drivers attending.
Members change. After 4 months Thorsten Ulrich has decided to leave team. Team want's to thank him for his effort in LFSCART Series,where he scored a lot of points for team to help secure title even before last round. We wish Thorsten good luck in future!
Future plans. Even if team seems less active then half a year ago,we're still not quitting LFS unlike many other. We have plans to take part in GT World Series (we might need help from outside as our line-up might be too short for 24h race and maybe for even 12h),GenR GT1 Challenge and possibly we will use the guaranteed spot on grid in GenR 9h of Aston.
Event organization is a bit on hold,as our GTAS failed to attract any serious interest,the planed autumn league has been crossed out,also the 3rd season of AWS is under question,but RTFRi will be still continued until bitter end and also the 3rd annual This is Crashmaaas!!! is alredy set to take place,so join us for some racing fun!