I can't remember how many of my races ended in that bloody chicane. This time I survived and could continue, but due to lack of speed on main straight even more unfortunate events happened and I decided to retire due to damages on car. I guess that happens when you prepare too much for race and expect good result
The 2nd century of RTFR events in now complete,well,there were some fireworks yesterday in the race - anyone from spectators position could not guess the winner until both leaders crossed the finish line and it wasn't the only final dash to finish line for position as there were plenty of other close finishes,including the run for final 2 places.
Let's start the recap with the driver able to set fastest laps in this combo - R.Kardol was the only one to beat 2:40 mark in both sessions and earned his 2nd pole position and 2nd fastest lap of the race. But 1st lap's final chicane was the spot where he lost any chances for good finishing order as you can see in video - just 15th place in results for him. So the battle for win was left to finns again - the best 2 of them were battling through 2nd half of the race while another 2 were following closely and waiting for chances. At the end Botsi regained the leading position in last hairpin and kept it over finish line to celebrate the anniversary 200th RTFR with 16th race win,which puts him now on top of the all time success rank. Botsi also scored his 31st top5 finish - he's closing in on 2nd best in this table Falcon,who has 32 top5 finishes (which coincidentally is also his racing number). Litti is known for winning a lot of races whereever he races,but hasn't had much success in RTFR - 2nd place yesterday,which is just 3rd top5 finish for him from 10 race starts. Winner of last race and rating/2019 standings leader Unite was in best seat to watch the battle for win and few tries to get involved didn't paid any dividends - 3rd place for him,12th top5 finish,10th of those in row. First time participant K.Kontio was the 4th finn in the leading mix - 1.5s off leader statistically normally would be 2nd place,but just 4th yesterday. Best of the rest was another 1st time participant Jueweb,who finished 5th,making 5 positions progress during the race.
With 200 nothing stops - in 2 weeks the 201 is already set to happen,this time we'll return to road legal cars,as usually more details in the weekend before it. But already next week it will be the 1st RTFR-XL rallycross race featuring LX6 at Fern Bay's Rallycross configuration - a very specific combo,will be interesting how everyone will be able to deal with car this light and powerful on unpaved surface,and if any RX specialists will show their skills here.
Thank you for your continued support by joining these events - it is still worth the effort to host events and competition is still high around here (I personally haven't been able to win a race for almost 4 years here) and quite many will confirm that it's getting hard to score a top5 position regulary. So let's go for the anniversary 300th RTFR!
A reminder - server will be password protected 1 hour before qualifying start to keep not knowing crowded server jumpers out of way,pass will be always the same: green
Some historic stats:
Last race won by: Botsi (4 in row for Finland)
Last UF1 race won by: Botsi (183rd RTFR - BL GP Rev.)
Most UF1 race wins: 10 races,10 different winners (Finland - 3 wins)
Last South City race won by: Botsi (192nd RTFR - FO8 @ SO Sprint 1)
Most South City wins: ixion.Agent & Botsi - 3 wins (Finland - 9 wins)
Current rating leader: GenR uNite (+39 points)
The new century started with race using the slowest LFS car,which is also known for close battles. There were plenty of them during the race,also for lead - barely anyone felt lonely on track yesterday.
The WR holder of this combo Botsi proved his rights for being called fastest here - he was the only one to break 1:30 laptime mark in both qualifying and race,and despite losing lead early in race,he collected a clean sweep of win,pole position and fastest lap - 17th,15th and 13th accordingly,also reaching 32nd top5 finish,which is tied 2nd most in RTFR history. The one who tried to challenge Botsi was R.Kardol - the 3-time winner tried his best,but still had to concede and finish as runner up,17th top5 finish for him. Unite qualified just outside top5,but found his pace during the race and climbed up to 3rd position,increasing his top5 finish count to 13,Rony had to give up his qualifying's 3rd position and finish 4th for 79th top5 finish. And do we really need to say who was 5th yesterday? Jeff qualified and finished in 5th position,scoring his 11th top5 finish.
RTFR now takes 2 weeks break from active racing,but soon the server will be set up for official custom layout testing for next RTFR XL scheduled in 3 weeks - XFG will be run in Blackwood Boreas configuration. But RGE racing action does not stop with RTFR - already this sunday the new Short Track Auto Racing League will start with it's special prologue race at Westhill's 600 meter Dirt oval. It will be one of the toughest challenges for drivers - dust,traffic,bumps,barriers and keeping the car under controlled slide between them for best cornering for almost 2 hours. More info and signups in STARL 2019 thread - the best will even receive small money prizes for their efforts!
A reminder - server will be password protected 1 hour before qualifying start to keep not knowing crowded server jumpers out of way,pass will be always the same: green
Some historic stats:
Last race won by: Botsi (2 in row for Botsi / 5 in row for Finland)
Last FOX race won by: Botsi (2 in row for Botsi / 3 in row for Finland) (182nd RTFR - FE Green)
Most FOX race wins: Botsi - 2 wins (Finland - 6 wins)
Last Aston race won by: Botsi (197th RTFR - RAC @ AS North Rev.)
Most Aston wins: Agent & Botsi - 4 wins (Latvia - 10 wins)
Current rating leader: GenR uNite (+21 points)
This was a rerun of a layout used back in 35th RTFR (run with UFR then),after many years it was deemed to be a good host for this FOX race. It deffinitelly gave to drivers a new challenge with new turns while most of the track consisted from very familiar Aston sections. Organizers are also only humans (born to make mistakes - quote from old song),so the originally posted race distance was 5 laps too long. Between qualifying and race this was corrected and we had a normal 30 min + 1 lap race again.
Litti was present once again and finally he was able to prove his skills again to take his 2nd RTFR race win. He set the fastest lap in qualifying (2nd pole position) and in the race was passed only for short time before turn 1,but regained his lead right away to never give it up for the remaining race distance,setting his 3rd fastest lap of the race on the way. It was Litti's 4th top5 finish and the finnish winning streak is extended to 6. Also the 3rd 2-win streak of Botsi came to an end without being extended to 3rd win - Botsi could not match his countryman's pace and finished 2nd quarter minute away from leader - he picked up his 33rd top5 finish with this. Rating and 2019 standings leader Unite tried to catch Botsi in the latter half of the race,but was able just to close up without any real chances to make pass - 3rd position and 14th top5 finish for him. Best non-finn was R.Kardol in 4th place,who lacked the pace to keep up with leaders,but never was endangered from behind either,18th top5 finish in his stats. After almost half-century break from RTFR,Falcon returned to this event and picked up 5th position - with this he keeps his 2nd most top5 finishes tie with Botsi.
This even now makes it's normal 2 weeks break before returning with a street legal car race,but until then there are another 2 RGE hosted events - already this sunday the round one of new XRT based league STARL awaits it's challengers,but next sunday RTFR XL will return with tricky custom course layed out in Blackwood's industrial area - more detailed info on both these events will be posted tomorrow.
A reminder - server will be password protected 1 hour before qualifying start to keep not knowing crowded server jumpers out of way,pass will be always the same: green
Some historic stats:
Last race won by: Litti (6 in row for Finland)
Last RB4 race won by: B2ﾏ Sarlin (175th RTFR - KY National Rev.)
Most RB4 race wins: 9 races,9 different winners (Latvia - 3 wins)
Last Rockingham race won by: GenR uNite (194th RTFR - FZR @ RO ISSC)
Most Rockingham wins: MareX #88 & Ardeeé - 2 wins (Finland - 6 wins)
Current rating leader: GenR uNite (+21 points)
This week in RTFR we had quite a short track racing feeling - featured track was just 1.3km long and laptimes were low to mid 40s depending on skill and situation. As usually RB4 made things difficult with it's trait to overheat front tyres that being loaded too much.
A driver known for his pace with FOX and FO8 joined this and proved that he can race also all-wheel-drive coupe - Litti was the fastest in pre-event practice,set the best time in qualifying (his 3rd),set the fastest lap in race (his 4th) and led from green lights until lap 20,where he retired just like that. Finmaxi,who joined RTFR for the 2nd time,took over the lead after Litti's retirement and never gave it up,lapping most of the field on his way. The finn writes himself into RTFR history books as the 69th different race winner,first new one since 196th RTFR in february,he also extended finnish dominance with 7th win in row for Finland. With quarter-minute gap to leader in 2nd place was R.Kardol,scoring his 19th top5 finish,3rd was Botsi,who took his 34th top5 finish - that puts him into sole 2nd place in most top5 finishes chart. J.A.Katila was the last driver on the lead lap,his 4th place finish is his 22nd entry in top5 finish list and top5 was closed by another finn - the rating and 2019 standings leader Unite. He kept his top5 finishing rate to 100% this year - 11th out of 11 races,15th total.
And again 2 weeks break until next RTFR event,one of the slick tyre cars will be raced then. THe winner of previous RTFR XL never replied to his message about combo choise,so it has been picked autmatically. The least used car had to be picked - there are still 4 cars never used in RTFR XL,most popular in normal RTFR of them is XRT. Also the track was picked in same way - there are 2 least used environments - Autocross and Rockingham,the latter one is more popular historically. It's 1st configuration named ISSC is more popular than others. Therefor: 30th RTFR XL in 19th june will have the combo XRT @ RO ISSC (RO1) with estimated distance of 50 laps unless WR will be improved to 1:29.99 or better.
Less tyre heating short track action still possible this week - the 2nd round of STARL is scheduled this sunday and it will feature the tricky Kyoto Sprint 8-track - signups still open,just like the chances for main championship!
A reminder - server will be password protected 1 hour before qualifying start to keep not knowing crowded server jumpers out of way,pass will be always the same: green
Some historic stats:
Last race won by: ~~FINmaxi~~ (7 in row for Finland)
Last XRR race won by: Dzidoris (188th RTFR - BL RGE Container Sprint)
Most XRR race wins: 10 races,10 different winners (Finland - 4 wins)
Last Westhill race won by: Botsi (198th RTFR - MRT @ WE RGE Tribune Run)
Most Westhill wins: v\A.Wiśniewski - 4 wins (Finland - 8 wins)
Current rating leader: GenR uNite (+2 points)
Sorry Rik, i ruined your race so early Thought i had more room to cut into the line there as i wanted to avoid going 2-wide that early into the race, and didn't notice you were that close there.
Don't worry mate. It's just a racing accident what happens with the start. And my race was already ruined because I couldn't find the right tyre pressures etc. So had a bit cold tyres and went off later with no grip.
After more than 4 months break RTFR featured some classic GTR action - XRR must have felt in this track like at home,this attracted a total of 22 drivers,who qualified for this race. Unfortunatelly just 17 of them started,but that does not mean that 1/5 of the action was missing.
Allthough there was no real action up front - Litti pulled away from the competition right from green lights and dominated every meter of the 100 kilometer race. He added to his stats 3rd win,4th pole position,5th fastest lap of the race,5th top5 finish and stretched the finnish domination to 8 wins in row (2nd effort from him in this streak). There was a race for 2nd place in early 1/3 of the race,but Botsi's chase target just retired and gave him free ride to 2nd place,35th top5 finish for RTFR all-time most successful driver. "Mr. Steady" T.Soini drove a very steady race in 3rd position,which is repeated best finish for him,17th top5 finish in his account. 4th was the only "outsider" top6 in this finnish dominated race - Rony finished 4th,extending his top5 count to 80,Unite finished 5th despite trying his XRR as rallycross car on run-off area of turn 2 of 1st lap,his chase effort was good enough to keep the top5 streak alive - 12th top5 finish in 12 races this year,16 overall.
RTFR again goes for a 2 week break,then one of the street legal cars will make it's return,but until then there are 2 other races scheduled from Race Green Events side - already this sunday the 3rd round of STARL will be run in the shortest Fern Bay configuration Club,but 2 days later the next RTFR XL will feature another 70+min XRT race - this time at Rockingham ISSC configuration.
((