Monday, March 24, 2008

MotoSL 3 Awards ceremony

On Saturday March 22nd , RaceSL held the end of season awards ceremony for MotoSL season #3 to close off the successful season . Riders , sponsors and fans alike attended the event hosted by Les and Motorato at Hotgates.



The end tally for the season was ---

Rider Champion : Jafo Tendaze
2nd place: Just Catteneo
3rd: Crippy Oh

Team Champion : Pure Racing
2nd Place: OMG racing
3rd place : NSG

The league now continues to move towards the start of FormulaSL season 2 , still much testing to do to adjust the cars to Havok 4 .


Sunday, March 9, 2008

Race #12 , MotoSL season 3 finale

Lot of nerves going into this one with team championship at stake. A long week of practice for many who put alot of time into getting ready for this one . 23 riders came to play .

Unfortunately the qualify round had some lag for many , most of it not serious lag , but even a little during qualify can dash someones hopes on the day .

I hadnt had more doubts about my chances in a race than this one in a long time , wasnt too confident i would make Group A. Just trying my best was my main concern at this time .
Some how that translated into me grabbing Pole Position in Group A from Caine Beresford by just .003 seconds.

The attendant crowd was treated to 3 good races for LCQ, Group C where YumYum took her 3rd straight win in that group. Group B where Doll Kabuki won big and made it 2 in a row for the depo team .

Group A consisted of me on pole , Caine 2nd, Just C., Jafo, Fox Tammas and Kandy Tommorow.
For me i can sum up my view of this race simply, the back of Just Catteneo's trousers.

After a crowded start where i fell at least to 4th place about half way thru track, i ended up crossing lap 1 in 2nd hot after Just in 1st , and thats how the whole race played out , me chasing Just , id gain , id lose, the last couple laps i fell back a little more , bust most of race i was less than a second behind him.

Just won, i got 2nd place, Caine 3rd. Kandy stalked Caine for a bunch of laps to grab 4th place, Fox Tammas finished 5th and Jafo had a bad wreck and came in 6th.

With it all said , Pure was able to get the Team Championship , even with the proverbial fighting us with one hand tied behind there back and hopping on one foot , due to lag , RL commitments ect... OMG still almost whooped us , it made for a exciting end of the season.

Now RaceSL moves towards final testing stages of FormulaSL season 2 , the rosters are filling up and the series will be run on the Havok 4 physics engine on all tracks .

Heres a link to video filmed by Ram Pharoah of group A race , filmed with camera on me whole race http://www.slodcast.com/media/fsl/motosl_12.html

Saturday, March 1, 2008

A wedding and a superbike race

Not the typical saturday on SL for me , online at 9am SL time , into my leathers and off to Mooz to practice for 2 hours for the days big race. Back home at 10:45am and i changed into a dress to attend my friend Dinee's wedding at 11am .


The wedding was beautiful, Dinee looked amazing in her dress and DOC was very handsome. Both exchanged sweet words of affection while Crippy dabbed her eyes , it was very nice =) I hated to have to leave so quickly , but at 11:20 am it was back to home , out of dress and back into racing leathers, then off to Mooz for last minute warmups .


12am, MotoSL round 11 of 12 , Mooz grand prix---26 riders Qued today for what many thought was gonna be Pure's make or break race in trying to catch OMG for the team championship. Both teams fielding a full compliment of 3 riders each, Motorato Ware, Silk Bamboo and Yuriko Nishi for OMG, Ram Pharoah, Suzy Cuddihy and Crippy Oh for Pure.

Qualifying....Once again the auto-matic Querer chose me to run the first round after the rookie Que was finished. Unfortunately after a little bit of tussling , a fall and other difficulties made this a nerved fill qualify for me, but somehow i got around well enough to get a 23.3 , suprising me quite a bit hehe, amd sticking me in Pole position.

Untill it was time for Moto Ware, Jafo Tendaze and Just Catteneo to run as a group in one of last qualify rounds. Jafo registered a 23.2 his first lap and stuck me at number 2 on the grid where i would stay ....because of the first turn quick Chicane (a small S turn) , spot #2 , 4 and 6 i dreaded cause of ther possibly dangerous approach to apex of chicane, collisions there happened in every race.

A couple good early races , highlights being Yum Divesadero's strong win in group C, and Suzy Cuddihy's (possibly) do or die win in the group B race. Then onto the grid rolled the Group A in order of qualify, Jafo, Crippy, Kandy, Caine, Just and Silk.



Soon Les activated the start gate and we were off , flying thru gears straight at the narrow Chicane, Jafo was thru quick ahead of me , but was hit from behind and lost some time coming out of chicane , allowing me to dodge ahead into the lead, and i led the first lap around. But i was in for not such a good lap , smacking into the chicane fence, Jafo is by me , i then hit the Hairpin turn fence on the same lap , 2 more bikes fly by me , suddenly im in 4th place.
Around after Caine , i chased him, trying my best to look for a clean pass and not force anything dangerous, for 4 laps i stalked him untill he took a corner too shallow and wiped out on the grass, im into 3rd.

The next lap i was on Silk who was in 2nd , but i took a risk and got run off into grass, was quickly able to recover and was off after Silk , chasing her , till i got by her near the pits , i was a bit wide and slow , while Silk was low and fast, her wheel clipped mine sending me onto the rough pit surface and sending me tumbling, Just Catteneo zoom by us both , sticking me back into 4th .

Another lap around and Silk had some trouble negotiating the chicane , slowing her enough for me to catch up, we took the same line, unfortunately i took it faster, my front tire hitting Silks and sending her into the grass as i moved by into 3rd again , on lap 13.

Around i went , lap 14 then last lap 15, suddenly coming thru the Chicane i see Just Catteneo is down , im passed him and into 2nd , but Just is back on his bike and fast after me , i cut the hairpin turn too tight and woulda hit fence if i didnt steer wide and lose momentum going into final straight, Just hit the hairpin dead on , the final straight was a drag race, with Just gaining every meter....but my wheel crossed the line first by .062 of a second and i grabbed 2nd place for the day , Jafo with his 5th win , no suprise as he is arguably steadiest racer at Mooz. Just in 3rd, Silk 4th, Caine 5th and Kandy 6th .

Pure gained 10 points in the championship total , narrowing OMG's lead to just 12 points, with 1 more race to go . I wish OMG was gonna field a full field of 3 , to make the final race a true showdown , but unfortunately Silk wont be able to make the race, leaving Moto and Yuriko still a better than decent chance of holding us off at race 12 at PSU 2.