After a trip around the world STARL returns back to UK - next race will be in the Rockingham environment,where the configuration named Handling will be used,but to make things a bit more tricky,it will be run in reversed direction,making the oddly shaped hairpin named Tarzan as it's 1st turn. The configuration has another hairpin,but it has a round shape. Both these hairpins count as possible overtaking places if the attack is set up good over turn previous to them. This is the shortest track on schedule,making this race to have the biggest lapcount in the season.

After the middle round has passed,it's much more clear how the championship might look at the end of the season. Standings feature 2 leaders,seperated by 9 points,which is approximatelly half of possible points per round - clear proof that battle is not over yet,allthough even if 2nd place owner Spiky wins both races and takes all bonus points,for the standings leader Unite it is still enough to finish in 2nd position in both races and take the championship. The 4th round also marks the end of signups - no new entries will be accepted after this round and in the season finale at South City only drivers with at least 1 point scored towards championship will be allowed to participate - this round will be the final chance for everyone outside the series still jump aboard this challenge.


Round info:
Track: Rockingham Handling Reversed (RO6X)
Laps: 97

Server info and password will be PM'ed saturday to all entrants,until then server remains publically accessible:
STARL [online]

Server is now passworded and password has been sent to all entrants via PM.

If someone hasn't received it due some mistake,please give a notification!

Signups for this season will close 10 minutes before qualifying! New entries will receive PM eventually at some point during saturday/sunday.

Qualifying:


Race:


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Deadline for protests - monday,20:00 UTC

Apologies to Adam. I misjudged the line I took and hit him from behind, which caused his car to spin.

Such interesting experience. First 30 laps taking care of tyre temps, last 20 laps taking care of tyre wear. Very intense one and the grass was so close all the time.

Fight for the championship started well in round 4 - table leader's closest rival Spiky set the fastest lap in qualifying and reduced points gap by 1 point. Despite good start and early lead,his day went south later as he dropped down quite few positions. R.Kardol was the one who grabbed race lead in lap 10 and never gave up - the dutch driver celebrated his 2nd race win in STARL. Standings leader had also few position changes before he could settle in stable 2nd position. Series newcomer Reject gain 2 positions between start and finish,rewarding his debuth with podium finish. Spiky still regained few lost positions and finished 4th,Sobis finished 5th which is his 1st top5 finish in 3 tries.

The intrigue for title has been reduced,but it's still there - Spiky rescued the title chances as he is still within striking distance. But Unite's lead is now 12 points,which means he needs to score 5 more (9th place finish) to guarantee the title in any scenario as any tiebreakers will be in favour for him due 2 race wins. No other driver can challenge for title while R.Kardol is in strong 3rd position with 10 points gap to closest rival,while between 4th and 5th places Rony and J.A.Katila ist just 1 point.

The battle for teams championship has been heated up to glowing - B2R scored highest amount of points for any team in single round for this season and closed up the battle for title to 1 point difference - RGA still leads,Yes also closed up and is just 5 points behind leaders. These 3 teams will decide the fate of teams standings podium,allthough theoretically also 4th place WCL can still mix in the battle,but 21 points might be too big obstacle against 2 multiple driver teams and single driver team of drivers standings leader.

As expected the nations cup has been wrapped up after round 4 - for Finland the chance to lose this title was only theoretic and no other challenging country received needed reinforcement. Slovakia has 7 points gap over Netherlands for 2nd place.

A total of 18 drivers have qualified for season finale in South City,2 others started a race during the season,but did not score a point. The venue for final action is configuration named Sprint 1 - configuration is just over 2 kilometers long and features up- and downhill main straight,a wide hairpin at the end of it and 2 tricky 90° lefthand turns. A custom layout will be used for this race to enable a relatively proper pitlane besides start/finish straight and much safer garage area,otherwise the configuration is same as original LFS's SO2 - sector timing locations are changed though. Despite being an urban environment racetrack,this might be the fastest way to complete the series nominal race distance of 150 kilometers - race is expected to be completed in 71-72 minutes.

Quote from Spiiiky :

Apologies to Adam. I misjudged the line I took and hit him from behind, which caused his car to spin.

Ah no worries mate, wasn't even that bad tbh, I could have done better to control it.

If i had known it would have stopped me from competing in the last round I wouldn't have left to watch the F1 and I would have persevered, ah well.

This is the end of the line - one final rush for victory lane in the 1st season of this new league. A total of 18 tickets have been earned for this event,hopefully most of the entrants will use them for one last chance to upgrade their own,their team's and nation's positions in the standings. Even if there are just 2 candidates for champion title and one of them has marginally slimmer chances to beat the other,nothing is locked in yet - one fluke in concentration or a technical problem and things still might go terrible south for the leading candidate. Unite needs to finish between best 9 to secure the title in any scenario,while Spiky needs to finish 2nd or alternatively 3rd while picking up both bonus points to even have a chance in case of leader's failure. But the racing is not just about championship - race winner's glory is still an achievement to work for - only 2 drivers have managed to do this so far in this season. Will there be a 3rd one?

Even if South City's Sprint 1 track is not in the top half of the most used LFS tracks,it's still well known for most. A lap is just over 2 kilometers long,which makes the race 74 laps to complete the nominal distance of 150 kilometers. A wide round hairpin after downhill braking is the key passing opportunity,but not the only one,but you'll need nerves of steel and great precision driving to attack anyone on the downhill 90° left turn. STARL offers a fully functional custom pitlane beside relocated start/finish line for anyone happen to make a mistake big enough to need repairs or fuel.


Round info:
Track: South City Sprint 1 (SO1Y)
Laps: 74

Server info and password will be PM'ed saturday to all entrants,until then server remains publically accessible:
STARL [online]

Server is now passworded and password has been sent to all eligible entrants via PM.

If someone hasn't received it due some mistake,please give a notification!

Signups are already closed!

Qualifying:


Race:

* race distance was halved due low attendance as per rules.

If you want to make a protest,please include all neccesary information.
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Deadline for protests - monday,20:00 UTC

Wimbledon was on so i had to watch that. Today was such a busy day if you are a fan of tennis and F1 like I am so that got in the way.

It's a well known trait in LFS league racing where attendance decreases towards end of the series,unfortunatelly STARL was not spared from this trait,even worse - attendance was so low that for the first time in Race Green Events leagues a race distance reducement rule was used.
But despite having only 5 cars on the grid,the intrigue and battles for win was high - none of the 3 leading drivers had a significant gap to followers until very late phase of the race. Unite missed the qualifying,but league rules still allowed him to start the race,with less practice than others he had to be patient and look for options - he found one on lap 27 where he finally slipped into lead and led the rest of the race as the 2 other drivers kept fighting between themselves. 3rd win of the season for the already crowned champion (due points reduction his standings lead was safe already after qualifying). Sobis led most of the race,but never was able to pull away and eventually was passed by both closest rivals of this race. But late dash gave him opportunity to get back at least one position and he used it to finish 2nd. Rony set the fastest lap in qualifying and started the race from front,but already in 3rd turn lost the lead and never got it back despite all tries. Own mistakes even took the 2nd position away,3rd place at the chequered flag. T.Soini was able to follow the leading group,but could just watch the battles from smaller or bigger distance - only in final laps he closed as close as in finish results,his teammate J.A.Katila was using not the best hardware for the race and was never a factor for higher position,still 5th position in race stats.

Full season recap will be posted next week.

Sorry that I wasn't there. I tried my best to be there but was too late at home.

Well done to Unite on the race win and to become the first STARL champion!


Note to Rony: Keep up the good work, this leauge was a pleasure and loved all of the races I could have attended, thanks

Unfortunately, I missed the last race as well, due to being away from home for a longer period. However, I enjoyed the series, we had some great combos. Congrats Unite!!

With a little delay it's time to post the final results and season recap of inaugural season of STARL. This was a new car for Race Green Events' organized leagues and it offered new challenges. Racing on rather shorter courses dropped the need to learn long laps and set more focus on racing against the rivals on track. The 1st season saw a total of 30 signups,unfortunatelly 1/3 of them never attended to a single round and left themselves just as dry database entries. From the remaining 20 entries,18 managed to classify themselves in results at least in 1 round,4 of them - in all rounds. Unfortunatelly just 2 drivers were able to finish a race as a winner,but the chase for the championship still was not easy for the champion. Attendance per round ranged from 15 in 4th round to 5 one round later,averaging 11 drivers per round.

STARL 2019 Drivers Champion: GenR uNite
The series champion Unite set his sights on title early on and held the performance stable through all 5 rounds - he won 3 of them and finished 2nd in both other rounds. He started every single race from inside grid position,in rounds 2 and 3 it was even the pole position. The main rival to the finn was Spiky,who also scored 2 pole positions and another 2 front row starts,but he was never able to convert any of those to a race win - he had 2 runner up positions,a 3rd and a 4th place finishes while he did not attend the final round,gifting his rival a free ride to the title. 3rd best in the series was R.Kardol,who was the other driver claiming winner's glory in a round,but he attended only 3 rounds,finishing 3rd in the remaining one. Also between best 5 in the series were Rony (4th) and J.A.Katila (5th) - both of them scored 3 top5 finishes with 3rd as best result. There is still another driver worth to mention - Sobis was the fastest in non-championship round at the dirt oval,but was not able to keep the performance up on paved surface as he finished just 6th in standings.

STARL 2019 Teams Champions: Race Green Autosports
It's been a while since the hosting team was able to clinch teams title in it's own organized series (last title was AWS 2016),in the inaugural season of STARL 3 of it's members took part and all of them scored valuable points towards title,scoring a total of 5 top5 finishes. The single driver team of Unite - yes motors sports - took 2nd place in teams standings,as the sole performance of the champion was not enough to beat team effort. The 3rd team in the table is Born To Race and it was represented by a total of 4 drivers,but only one of them attended in more than 2 rounds,while none of them in final round,giving up the chance to challenge RGE for teams title.

STARL 2019 Nations Cup winners: Finland
Recently dominant nation in various LFS leagues Finland did not leave STARL unchecked either - led by series champion Finland practically secured the title already after 3rd of 5 rounds and also was the only nation represented by more than 1 driver. Finland scored a total of 10 top5 finishes,half of this performance by series champion. All other nations are in the same order as their drivers - 2nd is Slovakia (represented by Spiky) and 3rd is Netherlands (represented by R.Kardol).


With this the opening season of Short Track Auto Racing League is concluded. The chance of league being held also next year is high and plans include ideas to make Dusty 300 a championship round while also adding another short track oval (a paved one) to schedule. But that's all just wishful thinking for now,the actual plans will start to form around march/april next year,hopefully planning the series on updated tracks.

Race Green Events thanks all participants and wishes much success in all other leagues and events they are taking part. We hope you enjoyed racing in STARL and you all get much fun and valuable experience from the races.
The prize winners will receive PM during this week!

Race Green Events nearest future plans include 5th season of V8 Racing League (running Formula V8),which should start in late september and might feature just 4 rounds. More details in around 2 weeks. Otherwise there are no changes - RTFR and RTFR-XL will not leave untile the bitter end,while 26th december should be already marked into every hardcore LFS'ers calendar as the Crashmas eve. All-wheel-drive Winter Series season 9? Yes,it's in the plans also!

As always - thank you Rony for organising! This was a fun series and I'm also happy that it was on Sunday evenings when I could attend without problems . Waiting for the next season!

Great series. I tried different approach and prepared my own setup for each round instead of asking for one. It was fresh challenge in combination with XRT car which I didn't like driving before.

Unite and Rik were too fast and I never really had a chance to challenge them, congratz to both.

Thanks, Rony!