Round 2 Summary
After 2 hectic races at Blackwood GP, once again it was J.Scheuerle who left with the most points from the round, picking up 3rd in the sprint race and victory in the feature race to receive 46pts. D.Williams also repeated his round 1 success with joint 2nd overall with both drivers picking up 36pts, Williams finishing 2nd & 5th, while J.Laurila took 5th & 3rd. Pole and the race 1 victory went to R.Mooney, who could only manage 7th in the feature event. Round 3 see's the series head to Fern Bay Gold with the LX4s on Thurs 12th March @ 19:00UTC, See you all there in 2 weeks.

Click 'read full story' for Results & Additional information

Official Results: Qual :: Sprint Race :: Feature Race
Round Replays: here
Round Video: Streaming Download

Round 2 Podiums:
Race 1 - 17 Laps
1st - R.Mooney FZR - 20pts
2nd - D.Williams FZR - 18pts
3rd - J.Scheuerle FZR - 16pts

Race 2 - 35 laps
1st - J.Scheuerle FZR - 30pts
2nd - D.Jagodits FZR - 27pts
3rd - J.Laurila FZR - 24pts


Race Report
Earlier this week the LFS Pro Series circus headed off to Blackwood GP, the original track of Live for Speed. Round 2 would see the drivers use the GTR class of cars, which is widely regarded as the proving ground for the who’s-who in LFS and like a few other series, LFSPS was taking advantage of the MoE series which was heading there, allowing them to practice just the 1 combo which they’d already be focused on. Because of this, the results were expected to be relatively close while the best drivers would stand out as everyone knew the combo only too well.

Qualifying
With qualifying underway, the 66 second per lap track allowed everyone to get plenty of laps in, the question would be whether they’d be able to make the clean laps count, as 28 cars on track at any given time works out at around 2sec gap per car, some on out-lap, some on timed lap. A time of 1:05.96 was achieved right on the 10min mark by Mercury’s R.Mooney, which would go unbeaten for the rest of the session to claim his second pole of the season, while My3ID’s D.Williams and H.Luis ran him pretty close with lap times of 1:06.10 and 1:06.11 respectively, with R.v.Buren in 4th and last rounds double-race winner J.Scheuerle in 5th.
Full Qualifying Result - http://www.lfsproseries.net/results.php?t=q&ss=4

Race 1
The first race of the evening would be a 17 lap sprint race, all the cars left the grid cleanly as they headed to the T1 hairpin and following chicane, the leading cars all got through without incident but J.Scheuerle saw his 5th grid start amount to 8th place after just a few corners after finding himself on the wrong line and being out muscled in places, while his #low teammate M.Gunzelmann also dropped places from 8th to 10th in the opening lap.
At the front, Ray Mooney was holding the lead, followed by both My3ID drivers and both F1rst drivers just behind them, and on lap 3 coming into the first corner hairpin R.v.Buren attempted an outside pass having managed an edged ahead of H.Luis by the smallest of margins, but Luis held his nose on the inside and connected with the rear of R.v.Buren and the pair rubbed door panels going through the chicane and in doing so ended up stopping each other turn left for the exit and both ran wide and into the tyre barrier with both drivers losing a number of positions, Rudy dropping from 4th to 10th, while Hugo went from 3rd to 7th but would pit at the end of the lap.

On lap 6 Scheuerle was able to capitalise on a mistake made by Staal on the exit of the chicane and the #low driver took the invite and opened a small gap and started looking at breaking down the 2sec gap to 2nd place. A few laps later, the battle for 5th started up, between Conquest’s A.Suszynski and Mercury driver J.Laurila, near the end of lap 10 when 2 small mistakes from the #21 car of Suszynski put 2 wheels onto the dirt and unsettled the car through a quick right/left sequence, allowing Laurila to get alongside the Polish driver and after a little side-by-side contact, Joona was able to slide the car down the inside of the following corner before completing the lap, but the battle was still far from over. Heading into T1 the 2 cars again went side by side, with Laurila holding the inside comfortably he held the place but when coming out of the chicane the car was caught off-balance and lost momentum heading onto the straight, and with Suszynski right behind and clean through the chicane he had the speed advantage and the draft of Laurila and was able to make the move and hold it at the end of the long straight, but late into the following lap another small mistake by Suszynski catching the dirt allowed the Finn to make a move and pull enough of a gap to avoid comeback from the conquest driver. This running battle allowed F1rst driver van Buren to close the gap to under half a second and put Suszynski under pressure as the final laps rolled in, but despite his best efforts and a last lap, last sector attempt the Conquest driver held his nerve and 6th place, while right at the front it was Mooney picking up his first win of the series, leading from the green light to the chequered flag. 5sec behind him was fellow Brit D.Williams who also started on the front row, and Scheuerle completed the podium in 3rd place despite the troubled start.
Full Race Result - http://www.lfsproseries.net/results.php?t=r&ss=5

Race 2
Race 2’s 35 lap feature race started with the top 10 grid reversed, this saw Infinity driver Jagodits receive the pole spot with his 10th place finish in race 1, and despite a small mistake into T1 he held onto the position but upset the applecart behind him as drivers tried to avoid his sideways car, and the bunch-up through the narrow devilishly curbed chicane resulted in some small scale chaos. First up was spdo Red driver Brazinskas who while rubbing door panels with Laurila had contact from Suszynski which resulted in the spdo driver losing the rear end of his car in the unavoidable incident. The initial contact by Suszynski pushed him wide and Staal who was to the outside was pushed wide also, and ended up head first into the tyres, spinning his car into the path of the oncoming traffic where he was twice bumped by race 1 winner, Mooney.
The 2nd bump was enough to get Staal facing the right direction and on the right path without too much time lost, but as the scattered field bunched up with unscathed drivers further back being much faster than the pack who’d been caught up in incidents Staal was nudged for a 3rd time as the #15 car of Haro was clipped and the small path change saw him run into the side of the F1rst car. Fortunately after this everything settled down, and normal racing was resumed.

At the end of the first lap, Jagodits held the lead, followed closely by Gunzelmann, van Buren, Laurila, Scheuerle, Suszynski and Williams, with the latter 2 switching places after Suszynski clipped the chicane tyres, the rest of the order would remain close but unchanged for a number of laps until Laurila clipped the chicane tyres and dropped to 6th with Williams taking the place at the end of the straight. For a while the battle for 2nd/3rd/4th between Gunzelmann, v.Buren and Scheuerle the 3 drivers were slowing each other down with defensive driving from any mistakes made and from having to take some corners 2-cars wide, this played out nicely for Jagodits who remained unchallenged while the faster drivers behind him squabbled for places.
By lap 12, Scheuerle had managed to move into 2nd and had closed the gap to Jagodits and was in a position to attempt a pass for the lead, but despite attempts to pass, including holding the lead for 1 corner, the Hungarian was able to retake the place but on lap 16 Scheuerle was able to make a pass and make it stick, before immediately making a 1sec gap over the next lap which continued to grow over the remaining laps.
While this was going on, there were smaller battles for 3rd/4th and 5th/6th/7th with all 5 cars only separated by only 2.5 sec and the gap was getting smaller. Gunzelmann and Laurila were nose to tail, and Williams, Luis and Mooney were the same. On lap 17 Mooney was able to pass down the backstraight for 6th, and by the end of that lap Williams left the 2nd group and was right on the tail of the 1st group, as Gunzelmann was holding off Laurila’s pass into T1 a poor exit in the chicane by Jonesy with his car landing on 2 wheels and sliding to the outside of the track just as Williams was about to go round the Mercury FZR pushing him onto the grass but able to continue and get back on-track just ahead of Laurila who was quickly into the slipstream and back infront but before the end of the straight a late braking manouver down the inside saw Williams retake the place with some contact brushing Laurila aside. Behind this Luis and Mooney had traded places at the start of the straight, but as Mooney went to retake the place the two bumped door panels and Luis was sent left, Mooney sent right, and with the right hand corner and only barriers and a gravel trap Mooney was able to regain control of the car while Luis ended in the gravel with his race over.
After losing 2.5sec to Gunzelmann while trying to hold onto 4th, Laurila finally caught back up to the #low-racing driver on lap 26 after eating away at the gap over 6 laps, and on lap 26 he had a good exit in the chicane and was able to get into the slipstream and take 3rd place by the end of the straight. Williams and Mooney weren’t far behind either despite the two trading places a couple of times, and on lap 28 Mooney passed the My3ID driver and was right on the bumper of #low’s Gunzelmann but in a familiar mistake, Mooney ran wide in the chicane, clipped the tyres and his car was sent spinning wildly until his car was at a standstill, by which time he’d lost 10sec dropping him from 5th to 7th just behind Suszynski.
As the chequered flag dropped, the finishing order was Scheuerle, Jagodits, Laurila, Gunzelmann & Williams.
Full Race Result - http://www.lfsproseries.net/results.php?t=r&ss=6

Summary
After both races, Scheuerle once again takes home the most points with 46 points gained, with Williams and Laurila both taking 36, Mooney picking up 32, Jagodits with 29, and Gunzelmann getting 27pts. Unsurprisingly its Scheuerle who leads the drivers championship followed by Williams and Gunzelmann. In the team championship #low are top with Mercury #1 and My3ID following.

Round 3 takes place on the 12th of March, with our first trip to Fern Bay for the LX4 race round the Gold configuration. See you all there in 2 weeks.