... a rhyme, not only giving a good description of drift events, but also giving a good idea of how round 6 of City Liga 14 was like. But in case of XRTs driftig around South City, there is not much you can see in addition to driving regulary as the buildings prevent to find new horizons. Also speed and tyres are victims of this style of driving a car. Instead of showing the perfect drift, avoiding it became the most important factor to master the 60 minutes around the Town Course. After the twisty first part of the track, the back straight - which actually is a bend - leads the drivers to the hairpin at the parking garage before a much shorter full throttle passage brings you to the final corner, where it is important neither to loose momentum nor to make contact with the outside armco. A new qualifying modus premiered: The 12 minute free-for-all session was followed by a Top-5 Superpole, where every driver had only one lap deciding over his starting position.
Grid 1's Superpole featured RAPTOR Paddi, HoR Schuhti, CR|troy, TEM/A.Pavars and RAPTOR Intre. Championship leading ﾒ C. Winkler could only watch those 5 fighting for pole position. With only one flying lap, noone was able to get close to their times from the Qualifying session. Intre was able to keep A.Pavars behind him, but Schuhti, troy and finally Paddi, who was the only one to break the 1:31 in Superpole, did faster times and qualified infront of him.The opening periode of the race had two loosers: Schuhti lost two positions and eX.R Asco, after having contact with SRT-Flip, had the burdon of being last. SRT-Flip however, caught a bad day for racing and finished last after the hour of racing. Racing calmed down as everyone was trying the best to keep their tyres, which had to work with the mass of the car, alive. Paddi and troy handeled this issue well, better then those behind them, sothat tey were able to build up a good gap. Intre's pace could not keep up with them, but as he used the intense fights behind him to his advantage, he drove the position he captured on lap 1 home. Schuhti was in a position he needed to move up some spots, to keep his title hopes alive. He tried desperately to pass Pavars, who defended his position with intense but fair moves. Half way through the race however, he left a small gap entering start-finish-straight which was enough to loose the position towards Turn 2.
Shortly after that troy caught up with Paddi once more, this time to prepare the predeciding move of the race. He used a mistake by Paddi, who was forced to wallride at the exit of Turn 1, took the inside line and captured the golden position on the breaks, reducing his deficit in the championship standings a bit. The championship leader finished 6th, the worst personal finish of the season. He only stayed infront of troy due to the drop result.
Trying to give his teammate support ﾒ C. Winkler was attacked by CR|Eisbaer, after the latter was able to beat HoR hanfer. hanfer had to defend his position towards the end of the race against !ce.splattaels. ﾒcite Mave was nearly the luck third in this fight. SRTA Mensafest missed a Top 10 spot, but kept SRT-Tobi behind, who himself saw the eXtrem Racing cars of Asco and Blacky in his mirrors. While GCRD »Cossi« seemed to be happy with the spot in the HoR sadwich between jueweb und Joker, SRT-Flip was able to get his badly damaged car over the start-finish-line after 60 minutes. All cars managed to finish the race on their own power.
Links Grid 1:
Qualifying - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G1/q1/
Superpole - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G1/q2/
Race - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G1/r/
Cq| Guﾏu surprised everyone by burning the fastest lap of the evening into the streets of South City in the Grid 2 qualifying session. However, he was not able to repeat his performance in the Superpole session starting "only" from grid spot four. His teammates ziomm and Gargi took row 1, P.Kubinji was third and HoR Totti got one step closer to being promoted to Grid 1 with his fifth starting position.Again, the start of the race had predeciding character: Cq| Gargi ran wide in turn 2 and let Guﾏu and P.Kubinji pass. Instead of chasing Cq| ziomm those three started fighting against eachother. ziomm used the fight behind him to safely win the race and securing a promotion spot. One could only immagine what would have been possible, if he singed up in time and started the season in Grid 1. Kubinji, meanwhile, used every inch of his car's width, defending his position for 20 laps before Cq| Guﾏu and Cq| Gargi found a way to pass him.
Although the ongoing fight slowed down those three, HoR Totti became a lonesome cowboy, riding home in 5th place and saying goodbye to Grid 2 as he is promoted into Grid 1. Behind him the gaps were closer. For example between BC K.Adam and GRT climbs. On lap 10 they met the first time, and their relationship got more intense, but still respectful. However, apart from loving each other tender, nothing happend, not even an overtake, still they had fun. The second couple found each other much later, but their relationship was even closer, and they can continue it on a higher level, as DiDi and TSF.Dietmar both got promoted into Grid 1. Fith and last promoted driver was SRT-Wasrun, whose 11th place was enough to finally make the promotion.
He was followed by another couple in form of RTSW teammates ICE and NOB2 who had TSF.kniL in their mirrors. HoR spooky and RTSW Smoke were followed by -[BC]-Cooper and -[BC]-HaiTauR, who were busy keeping Mario behind. •FFR•D3vil finished the race with a broken toe. FRT Mighty Pharao finisehd in 21st, which seems his favorite position this season. Bips, FRT Temporato, TSF.Baldi and Cq| Makao did not finish,
Links Grid 2:
Qualifying - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G2/q1/
Superpole - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G2/q2/
Race - http://cl.racemore.de/mpres/league/CL/14/R06/G2/r/
Even without bonus points for the best drifts, there were various battles for positions and points. But no final decision yet. The title stays on the line for the City Liga 14 finale, which therefore will be a true one. To avoid, that anyone misses the finale, we have a little extra again. Well, actually two. Stay tuned.
Article by Jogy, translation by Falke, pictures by A.Pavars