Round 11 at PSU Canyon

Sunday August 3rd, Round #11 of 12 FormulaSL season #2. This week we headed back to the newest track on the circuit , the canyon track at PSU .18 drivers qued up after a hour delay due to unforseen circumstances, attendance had slimmed some since the start of the season where we had 25 strong each race, but even 18 is a impressive number for a a SL racing event.

Annie Gufler grabbed her 4th straight pole position , with Archer's own Yuriko Nishi 2nd, Silk Bamboo putting in a great qualify for 3rd, Jafo 4th , and Caz Freschi 5th for the Group 1 race.
I ran cold in the round and only managed to get 7th in qualify , landing me in Group 2 for 3rd time this season . Group 4 proved practice pays as rookie driver Molly Fitzgerald ran a strong race winning wire to wire and advancing on to the Group 3 race.

Molly again ran strong early in race before her car was lost in a bad wreck, Yum Divesadero ran this one wire to wire for a deserved win, strong performances from Brave Ashbourne who got 2nd and Dolli Dreamscape who got 3rd.

On to the Group 2 race, basicly my championship bid this season is riding on this race, and i was able to find a zone and run as strong as i could , leading the 25 lap race wire to wire , giving me the 6th spot in the Group 1 race i needed badly.

Neko Carter beat YumYum at the finish line by .01 seconds to grab 2nd , Yum 3rd, Sulla Looming, who was able to make her first FSL race, after so much promise in the pre-season had been ended by new RL work schedule, finished 4th ( or 9th overall) in her FSL debut, FOX Tammas 5th and Suzy Cudihy 6th .

Group 1 race , sitting in the back of the pack, 2 Archer cars in front of me , Jafo directly and Yuriko 2 rows up . The first major turn on this track is a hard left thru a enclosed tunnel , so as the lights went out i held back some letting the pack thru , but searching for a hole , lap 2 i found a little one , jumping ahead of Caz into 5th , but a slip and he was by me and again i was trailing the field in 6th .

5 laps passed i chased 5th place Caz and 4th place Silk as close as i could , but there was no mistakes to exploit , by lap 6 Annie led the field , with Yuriko in 2nd , and Jafo 3rd.
Finaly lap 7 Caz blinked and slipped a bit on the dirt and i was by him into 5th . Lap 12 Silk finaly had a bad moment giving me the chance to jump into 4th , the rest of the field had remained the same before the 1st pit stop, Annie , Yuriko then Jafo.

Laps 14 and 15 the field makes their pits , Yuriko's pit crew make both crucial tire and fueling mistakes costing her a deserved spot on the podium, but it was a mistake that allowed me to get by before she recovered, and sneak into 3rd place. Jafo led for 1 lap as Annie pitted , but his car stalled hard, although i dont remember passing him , next thing i know , lap 17 of 30 and im in 2nd place.

Lap after lap im suprised everytime i see it say my name in 2nd place, i never saw Annie's gate spam , but next thing i know , after a couple mediocre laps , lap 23 and i see Jafo's gate spam in 3rd just 2 seconds behind me . Twice Jafo surged within passing distance on laps 24 and lap 28, but twice he fell back .

Annie took her 2nd straight win , Crippy 2nd, Jafo 3rd, Yuriko 4th, just off podium for 3rd time . Caz got 5th in his first Group 1 appearance and Silk Bamboo 6th .

2nd place in this race to Jafo's 3rd gives me +4 points , bringing the duel for the League championship down to the last race of the season with the points score at Crippy 208 , Jafo 201. Anything can happen in FSL so no one will be counting any chickens till the cork pops on the final race of this season.