The 13th season of AWS kicks off with a love-it-or-hate-it track - the 600 meter dirt oval layed out in biggest grass area in Westhill's infield. Last time this track was used in 2022 with FXR,which was running head turning 20.2 second laptimes. Now the car is slower and much heavier - the Luxury Sedan brings the scales up to 1800 kilograms,so all of the 380 horsepower are needed to get close to at least RB4's performance of 2019 and 2020. Powerslide through the turns in correct angle and good line are the key factors for best pace around this track,dealing with traffic - key factor for the race.

As always in the oval rounds we will use hotlap qualifying to ensure solo effort being decisive in order to take high grid positions and in track this short - to reduce negative effect of traffic. The running order of qualifying will be decided from Drivers Championship standings of previous season - lowest placed drivers will start qualifying while standings leader will take his run last,drivers who did not participate last season will follow in signups order. Everyone will have to run 3 laps - outlap and 2 timed hotlaps,after which driver should spectate,only fastest lap counts of course. 2nd timed lap is optional - theoretically cars are faster in 2nd lap,but in case of a mistake,driver can spectate without finishing 2nd timed lap.

Current signups list shows one previous champion and several series regulars,so there is already a potential for championship battles,time will show how many will join. Round 1 of course won't decide anything,but a good start might give that tiny advantage for the rest of the season in fight for better position!

Round info:
Track: Westhill Dirt Oval (WE1X)
Laps: 100 (60km)
Car: CZR LUXURY SEDAN
Previous winners : ZFRL•Thehemuli (2022 / FXR), Trespasser (2020 / RB4), LLM.Sobis (2019 / RB4)


Server info and password will be PM'ed during sunday (european time) to all entrants,until then server remains publically accessible:
AWD Winter Series

AWS 2024 signups thread
Race Green Discord

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 are still open and new entries will receive PM at some point during sunday/monday.

Qualifying:


Race:


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

The 13th season of AWS started with a dusty and dizzy racing at the small 600 meter circle in Westhill. To make the relativelly small track a bit more challenging,a 1800 kilogram car was selected,which with some practice turned out to be slightly faster than LFS's own RB4 used twice in this track in AWS history. Of course seasoned racers were not much affected by car's parameters and focused on their performance,addapting to car relativelly quickly - the same 2 drivers who were on top on all 3 seasonal RTFR standings this year,were also on top of both session tables last sunday.

The 2021 AWS drivers champion R.Kardol qualified 2nd and after little struggle he permanently took over the lead on lap 2 - the dutchman led 99 laps of 100 to score his 6th AWS race win,finishing almost half of a lap ahead of closest rival. That was his teammate Gábor,who started only his 2nd ever AWS race - in qualifying he set the fastest lap to score his 1st AWS pole position,despite not being able to keep the lead,he still improved his previous AWS race effort by 2 positions by finishing 2nd. The bottom step of the podium was taken by probably the most experienced and successful racer on this particular track - the 2019 AWS champion Sobis has celebrated 2 wins here (AWS Dusty 100 with RB4 and also STARL Dusty 300 with XRT - both on 2019) and showed plenty of experience also this sunday as despite low starting position the lithuanian was able to climb up the running order to finish 3rd,setting also new track record with this car during the race.


Top3 of drivers standings are now seperated by 2 points between each other as both drivers besides winner scored a bonus point. Same situation is of course also in both Cross challenge and Oval trophy standings,both of those will have another 2 rounds to decide their particular award winners - next round for one of those will be round 3,which will count towards cross challenge.

The VERL champion of 2023 RD2 was also the best rookie in the series,after round 1 he also leads rookie standings in AWS,having 4 points advantage over Stiefla. The 3rd and last rookie in this race retired few laps before reaching points scoring half distance.

With 2 drivers finishing on top,Team S1dus of course scored most points from this round,missing only the bonus point for fastest lap - the 2021 teams champions now lead the table by 17 points over closest rivals,which are the defending champions RGA. The 2-time champions LLM are in the 3rd position from sole effort of Sobis. 4th and 5th place finishes were enough for defending champions Finland to take the lead in Nations cup table after 1st round - it is the only country with more than one points scorer. Netherlands is 2nd with 5 points gap,Hungary 3rd another 2 points behind.


Of course nothing can be decided after round 1 of 7,so everyone joining in have great chances to get involved in fight for all the awards,however the points scored already might still be a worthy advantage needed to edge out any suddenly joining superiour racers. Round 2 is set to run on the 1st sunday of next year - after 3 weeks gap AWS will resume the action in South City,where a new car power record will be set in league's history - the 545 horsepower Adda 200 will beat previous record by mere 8 horsepower and will be a tough challenge as it does not feature modern cars downforce numbers.