The season of big changes starts with the classic Blackwood RXGP round in the classic Blackwood Rallycross track,run in reversed direction. But this classic has a big change - the car run here this year is something quite different from what AWS drivers are used to. The new lightweight buggy is 1st ever single seater run in this league through it's 12 seasons. Currently the signup activity is lacking,but between entries there is already one familiar name from few years ago - the 2016 drivers champion. Now the question is - who wants to challenge him in the new era of AWS?

On a typical LFS rallycross track there is no question about tyre selection - only hybrids is a smart choice. The lightweight car can still be rough on the tyres if run too agressivelly on tarmac parts,but the biggest weakness is the clutch - despite need to rev the engine on high notes,it is required to take care of revs,when landing the car from jumps,as a high difference between wheelspeed and groundspeed when landing will torture the clutch to glowing. Track however is the familiar part in this race,still will draw from drivers a lot of effort to enter the 1st turn without losing time to rivals. Even if very alluring,drivers should avoid going fast over last jump - overshooting last turn will be very costly!

Round info:
Track: Blackwood Rallycross Reversed (BL3R)
Laps: 41 (75km)
Car: B2AS
Previous winners : [FM]ˆﾁαtαι (2022 / XERA) S1DUS*R.Kardol (2021 / FXR), RGˆDzidoris (2018-2020 / FXR), nsys|MareX (2017 / FXR), CoRe A.Laipnieks (2015 / FXR), 22 S.Jurvansuu (2014 / FXR), CoRe T.Lähteenmäki (2013 / FXR), spdoreno (2012 / FXR)


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 2023 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:


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Deadline for protests - tuesday,21:00 UTC

ANTTI VALTA wins the first round of the ALL DRIVE WINTER SERIES 2023! 🆕🔥

After conquering Pole, Valta controlled the race from start to finish, finishing 13 sec ahead of ZFRL's Theehmuli! 🤛
Third place on Podium for RG's Lorenzo, who finished ahead of teammate & Race Green Legend, Rony. 🥦

[MRC] Texas completes the Top 5 of what was an eventful & spectacular Rallycross Race!

(Full report coming later in the week)

AWS has started the dozen season with the lightweight "formula offroad" - this race recorded 1st ever AWS race with car lighter than 1 ton. And that was not the only record that fell this monday - this was the 1st ever Blackwood RXGP with 41 laps distance (first two seasons had 2 laps shorter distance) to be completed under 40 minutes! This car was actually built with breaking records in mind,even if it was a tick slower that last year's XF eGTR version,the lack of need for pitstops lead to new race distance record. What wasn't breaking any records was the attendance - with 13 drivers attending in season opener,it was pretty much average attendance of this round (13.4 before this season).

The 2016 series champion A.Valta returned to series for the 1st time since his championship season and did it with style - he was significantly faster in qualifying to secure the pole position and led all 41 laps to score his 4th AWS race win. Interestingly this was his 1st ever Blackwood RXGP as 2016 was the only year when this round was not held. Last year's rookie of the year Thehemuli stole the fastest lap of the race from race winner,which is his 1st such achievement in this league. Still he had to work hard to not allow both green cars in his mirrors grow bigger,eventually pulling 4 seconds gap over finish line to finish 2nd. The closest green car was Lorenzo,who started from outside of the 3-wide front row - he kept the 3rd position through whole race to score his 1st AWS podium finish. Note to add here - top6 drivers finished in same order they qualified,there were couple position changes at the bottom end of it during the race.

After 1st round as always the standings positions are same as race results of round 1 - A.Valta is leading standings by 3 points over Thehemuli,Lorenzo is 3rd with another 3 points gap. Same situation is in the Cross Challenge table,there are 2 more rounds to go for this award,both on the 2nd half of the season.

Currently there is just a single rookie in points standings,therefor this award might not be awarded if no other rookie finishes a race during the season (no point honoring someone as best if there was no competition).

Situation in teams championship is quite competitive after 1st round - the series hosts and 5-time champions RGA are leading by 2 points over Zafiralis (the rivalry continues from VERL),3rd is MRc with 5 points gap from leader. Nations cup is currently led by defending champions Finland,which scored maximum possible 39 points in this round. Czechia is 2nd with 19 points gap to leaders,followed by Italy another 5 points back.

As always in the 1st raceday of the new year,AWS holds the NewYear City Challenge - a tradition that has not been broken through whole league's history. What's changing is the car - before it was switched between the well known FXR and RB4 (the latter had just 2 appearances though),this year the relay is taken over by a smaller GTR car - the PZG GTR has just a bit more than half horsepower of FXR,but weights only 900kg,making it very agile through the winding turns of the urban track. This year the longest standard configuration City Long will be used for 27 laps race.