Even in the opening laps it was clear that #64 Martin Kapal (Flame CZE) and his SAVAGE SimSports teammate #23 Jaroslav Dohnalik (Fast Jarda) would be serious contenders for the race win. At the drop of the green flag Dohnalik, pole sitter #32 Patrick Hall of Race Green Autosports, and IndyCar 250 champion #52 Tomas Koreny of rForce broke away from the field leaving #96 Rony Kronpuss, Kapal, and #26 Filip Klier of rForce behind in a second pack a long with the rest of the field behind them.

Unfortunately, early in the running Thomas Korney would time out, and Patrick Hall would scrape the wall. This would allow Martin Kapal to hook up with his SAVAGAE SimSports teammate at the front of the pack and the pair would check out from the field until the first caution of the race which came out on lap number 34 after the number 26 of Filip Klier lost control in the draft of 2012 race winner Ramon Blauwhoff (ChristijaNL) coming off of turn number three.

The rest of the first half of the race would be plagued by caution flags which rendered the race a series of sprints rather than an endurance race on the high speed Kyoto Ring Oval.

The third caution flag of the day would come out on lap number 54, after the 31 of Yuri Laszlo (Yuri Laszlo) and Thomas Korney made contact coming through the tri-oval in front of a massive group of cars. In total eleven competitors were caught up in the incident and when the tire smoke settled there were four cars left immobile. The field was drawn to a stop the next lap as those competitors were permitted to reset and continue after being by-passed by the field and loosing a lap.

After a few other small incidents the final restart of the day took place on lap number 120. Pole Sitter Patrick Hall used pit strategy to obtain the lead over Martin Kapal a caution before and lead the field to the restart. Martin Kapal took the green flag in second, #53 Zlati Zlatev (kochomoch) restarted on the inside of row number two inside of his Fast and Crazy teammate #83 Lyubomir Stefanov (razlikataa). Patrick Hall's teammate Rony Kronpuss took the final restart in 7th position and Martin Kapal's teammate Jaroslav Dohnalik would take the restart in 8th.

Hall and Kapal would break away form the field early in the final 96 lap run to the finish, but Blauwhoff, Dohnalik and Kronpuss didn't let them get too far ahead. Dohnalik and Kapal would hook up bumper to bumper and pull away with only Ramon Blauwhoff able to keep their draft. In the end though, Blauwhoff would lose their trail as well and when followed was a battle between the Race Green Autosports drafting pair of Rony Kronpuss and Patrick Hall, and the SAVAGE SimSports drafting pair at the front of the field. The race seemed to hinge upon their abilities to bump draft. This seemed to be the downfall of the Race Green Autosports pair who had difficulties unlike the race leaders.

In the final lap Kapal pulled along side of his teammate Dohnalik in the middle of turn number three and the momentum which he gained on the inside allowed him to edge out his teammate for the race win by just .05 seconds. Pole sitter Patrick Hall was able to edge out his teammate for third place. Zlati Zlatev rounded out the top five a whole 22 second behind the race winner and Filip Klier rounded out the lead lap in sixth place.

The win by Martin Kapal extended his points lead in the Realistic NASCAR Cup Series to 85 points over Rony Kronpuss and 94 over third place in series points Thomas Korney.

Round number three will take the Series to the quarter-mile Fern Bay Oval (F24). Competitors will be asked to tackle the difficult track in the XRT. Qualifying for the Fern Bay 150 will begin on March 3rd at 15:00 GMT.

2013 Kyoto 400 Official Results: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/19870068/Realistic%20NASCAR%20Cup/2013%20Kyoto%20400%20Results.pdf

2013 Kyoto 400 Statistics
Course: Kyoto Ring Oval
Race Distance: 216 laps (400.032 miles / 643.680 km)
Time of Race: 2:53:00.88
Race Winner: #64 Martin Kapal (Flame CZE)
Margin of Victory: 0.05 seconds
Average Race Speed: 138.728 MPH (223.223 km/h)
Lead Changes: 67 between 5 leaders
Cars Started: 15
Running At Finish: 13
Lead Lap Finishers: 6
Caution Flags: 8 for 43 laps
Weather: Cloudy with low winds

Flag Summary
Lap 1 - Green Flag - Start of Race
Lap 34 - Yellow Flag - 26 spun on front stretch
Lap 39 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 46 - Yellow Flag - 58 spun off turn 3
Lap 52 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 54 - Yellow Flag - 31, 52, 23, 58, 96, 55, 50, 45, 43, 53, 74 crash in tri-oval
Lap 55 - Red Flag - Crash cleanup (2:39.83)
Lap 60 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 62 - Yellow Flag - 26, 55, 83 crash in turn 1
Lap 69 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 77 - Yellow Flag - 74 spun off turn 3
Lap 84 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 86 - Yellow Flag - 31, 45 crash off turn 3
Lap 92 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 106 - Yellow Flag - 45 spun off turn 1
Lap 112 - Green Flag – Restart
Lap 113 - Yellow Flag – 50, 23, 43 crash in turn 1
Lap 120 - Green Flag - Restart
Lap 216 - Checkered Flag - Race Complete


Crash on lap 54 which brought out the red flag


The finish of the 2013 Kyoto 400


2013 Kyoto 400 Podium