Round 2 FormulaSL 3 2009

RD Motorsports played host to the 2nd round of this season of FormulaSL , the skies we clear and blue, hardly a lag cloud in the sky (can never escape SL lag, but it was nice anyways ). Another 40 + drivers and spectators crowded into the viewing box. 29 drivers entering the que for the event.

Annie Gufler got her 2nd straight pole and 2nd straight win . With Yuriko Nishi hot behind her, puttign in a great performance for 2nd , KRP ace driver Caz Freschi getting his first taste of the podium for the season. Jafo Tendaze had a rough race finishing 4th , Ram Pharoah rounding out top 5.

Stang Voom and Ram Pharoah got the pass to the A group by finishing 1st and 2nd in a good B race, filled with lots of close racing , and lead changes. Ram led the entire race but Stang got by on the last lap for the win. RD Motorsports owner barely got 3rd with a very close finish with Suzy Cuddihy , only by .16 seconds.

Group B wasnt Stangs first race of the day . Stang ran strong in the Group C race, although Remon Franizzi put up a serious challenge late in race, Stang held on for the win. Ashe Revnik won a intense 3 way battle early in the race to get 2nd and the advance to B race. Racer's Island teamies Remon Franizzi and Brave Ashbourne finished a close 3rd and 4th .

Group D looked a bit like it did last week , with Indie driver Ford Roffo sitting on pole , but someone musta stuck a banana up this monkey's tail pipe cause well after green thats all he was still doing on pole , sitting . Perhaps the flashing green light that tells his simian mind to press the gas wasnt switched on in time ....did the phrase "stuck a booger" have any revelance or context here, we may never know.

The other 6 drivers werent concerned , instead they gunned it on go , with Remon Franizzi getting the all important early steady lead in this 10 lap race. 2nd was more of a battle and some good driving , with Tracy Torok, in 2nd the first couple laps then being passed by Alice vet driver Darko Revnik taking over for a few laps before getting into trouble finishing 5th , just behind a surging Nella Boccara.

Amber Raceway ace Tracy Torok got back by Darko lap 6 and held on for 2nd, Ace Crabe got 3rd. Round 3 from the claustorphobic Snowpeach in 2 weeks , with Annie in 1st place in points, Yuriko 2nd , Jafo Tendaze 3rd and Caz freschi 4th .

G1-GP Season Finale

Wednesday was race 10 of 10 at Spa Franchorchamps , not sure anyone got away without any scrapes... it was a doozy, heres a highlight reel of a little of the action .




You may have to fiddle with slider to get it to play it all....
this file seems truncated ...a limited number of downloads of full wmv file is available from rapidshare at http://rapidshare.com/files/213847808/S1-R10-s_0001.wmv.html

The full version with no sound can be had at youtube at ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8YUvqWhc4s

FormulaSL - Season 3 opener

Annie Gufler wins season opener at Mooz


It was a nice welcome back on saturday for everybody , and i mean everybody as 50 peeps crowded into Mooz to kick off the new season . This included 30 drivers eager to test their mettle in Second Lifes most prestigious racing series . One of the great things about RaceSL, and even more so this season ,it has collected some of the best participants of SL's other top notch racing leagues , including Racers Island fielding a team of 4, Amber Raceway , and for the first time our Italian friends from the Alice Racing league.

Any commentary on this race cannot avoid the fact that Annie Gufler of AM Pro dominated the days proceedings , grabbing pole position then skillfully running away with the 8 car Group A race, lapping the entire field .

But for my day personally it was certainly one of the greatest challenges in my own teams history and a day i am quite proud of my team mates. The qualify round only shined for Jafo Tendaze , 2 time RaceSL champion , who qualified 2nd behind Annie . Yuriko Nishi and myself suffered from nerves and or inclement weather to qualify 10th and 11th , putting us back in the middle of the field for the B group race.

The situation was not looking good , with veteran speedfreak Hotspot Racing Drivers Silk Bamboo and Suzy Cuddihy both qualifying into A group , along with AM Pro sticking 2 drivers into Group A with the brilliant qualifying run of Annie's vet teamate Fox Tommas. Already the obituary Archer Racing's record of 36 straight races in 1st place was going thru my head, as our backs were obviously up against the wall like at no other time in our year and a half history .

All there was left to do was to actualy race, all we could do was try our best to give the other teams a challenge. Either Yuriko or myself needed to come in 1st or 2nd in Group B race to advance on to A and attempt to defend our title . After that it was a bit of a blur to be honest , a nice start for me as i threaded the needle past cars in trouble to move into the lead, it felt good out there and i did what i had to do making as few mistakes as possible and winning the race, and as a nice added bonus Yuriko also ran a very good race coming in 2nd .

Although i do prefer to adjulate the accomplishments of my fellow competitors on this forum , i am quite proud that Archer was able to rise to the occaision , with Jafo coming in 2nd and Yuriko grabbing 3rd, securing us our 37th straight round in 1st place, but just 2 points ahead of the AM Pro team. With the whole of the season remaining i think this will be a continuing battle with the veteran AM Pro and Hotspot Racing teams , both not only worthy to knock us off the top but also deserving to do so .

Veteran Caz Freschi overcame some bad breaks during the race, included a few maulings by myself to put the new InDrive team of Greg Draymans Kokopelli racway and league into 4th place. But i think the most eyes were on the rookie Midnight Lotus team , led by dedicated RaceSL rookie Laney Recreant and a top performing Ashe Revnik, Midnight Lotus had a commendable day with Laney finishing 9th overall and Ashe finishing in the points in 13th after a great performance in the C race to advance up to the B race.

The skilled , and to be completely honest... often a crazy ... Racers Island team was led by veteran nutter Brave Ashbourne who ran a solid win in the C race , finishing 10th overall on the day , not far behind was Remon Franizzi in 12th .

The highlight of the Group D race was resident monkey and indie driver Ford Roffo who decisively led wire to wire. Ford then came in 5th in the Group C race. Another story of the day was Racers Island veteran Rattra Raymaker having computer problems and running the event on a backup computer, he did great coming in 2nd behind Ford in Group D and 4th in the C Group race.

Although SL wasnt too kind to us as far as lag , sometimes it was ok, sometimes it was just bad , the race was a great show of driving prowess and support, and the rest of the season is promising to be much the same, the next round is saturday the 28th at the Canyon raceway , with alot of drivers already looking to be in top form in early week testing .

Barcelona GP video

Heres my first attempt at making a highlight reel for our Rfactor league ..hope it works hehe

FSL 3, Heavy metal, and lots of stuff

Its been awhile since i posted here, but still been very busy in SL. Tommorow saturday march 21st is opening race of FormulaSL 3, word has it approx 36 drivers are signed up and ready to go. This of course includes Archer racing , Yuriko , Jafo and myself are prepared to brain each other in search of a season title, and the team as a whole hopes to capture its 4th RaceSL team championship.

Also in my time off , the G1-GP season has been progressing well, 3 races since my last post, a win for myself and 2 in a row for Sulla Looming, next wednesday is the season finale at Spa Franchorchamps , with several drivers points still very close. Im hoping at some point to be posting short highlight reels on Youtube, with links here on the blog.

Also a nice change for us , besides wheels , rubber, cars , bikes , motorsports....was a great Iron Maiden concert performed by Bad Ampitude at Renegades, a nice change of pace and a good time for everyone. My next post will be the race report for Round 1 at Mooz , good luck to all the teams and drivers this season , it should be a good one .

Nuerburg Grand Prix under the lights

Last wednesday was round 7 of the G1-GP Rfactor league, this time it was off to Nuerburg Germany for the longest round of the season , just 23 laps, but at more than 1:50 minutes a lap , the whole race took 45 minutes to drive. Also this time I sped up how fast the game time passed, so we started the race in the daylight and ended in the pitch dark .

10 drivers again this round , the horn sounded and we were off . Katier Reitveld, who qualified 4th , saw a opening turn 1 and took a bold dive at it , a risky move that could potentialy take out other drivers, but she executed it nicely , battling and banging side by side with Sulla Looming around turn 1 for 1st place, Sulla came out ahead, i found myself in 4th behind Caz Freschi after braking badly at turn 1.

Sulla moved away out in front , she had up to a 14 second lead at one point . Meanwhile Caz, myself , Yuriko and Jafo chased after Katier who was in 2nd. Caz took a turn too quick and I moved by , then passing Katier a bit later for the lead after Sulla had made a early pit stop .

There was alot of contact this race, with drivers banging it out side by side in some turns . I think one of the highlights of the race was Suku Mings performance. Suku was placed high after the dangerous turn 1 , but got bumped and spun out accidentaly by Jafo in turn 2 , Suku fell to 10th after this incident , same back luck she had last race at Monaco on the first lap.

Most of the race Suku was in no better than 8th place, but thru effort and perserverance managed to finish 5th for her 5th top 5 finish of season . Sulla led the race easily till she made a early pit lap 5 . I moved into the lead untill i pitted , then Caz took over.

Jafo had a fast 1st pitstop and was in 2nd place coming out , with myself trailing in 3rd. Sulla was back in the pack , but had a excelent strategy going and was biding her time . Slowly but sure light fell on the track, from day time , to twilight , then finaly darkness.

Lap 17 I was leading with Caz close behind in 2nd , and Sulla about 20 seconds behind in 3rd.

It was time for my 2nd pit , i pulled in and it was a race...this was my fast pitstop, 5 laps to go, no tire change, just gas . I pulled into pit lane and to my garage and stopped, 12 seconds was the time needed to give me the fuel to finish the race, i watched my dashboard display where i could see the list of drivers and their positions , being in 3rd, Sulla's time behind me quickly counted down towards 0....

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I could hear her coming down the front straight as my fuel was finishing , i peeled out and almost spun trying to get going , but was able to come out fairly close behind her, and the chase was on .

Caz was still way ahead in 1st place, but he still had to make his pitstop . He pitted that lap(18) and Sulla moved into 1st , with me close behind .

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It came down to a face off in the dark , and it was still growing darker, being around 9 or 10pm game time , everything became harder and harder to see, soon all anyone could see was what their headlights touched ...no high beams either at 170 mph. Soon the dark took its first casualties, lap 20 , Katier , who had run off track accidentaly , re-entered the track right behind Yuriko , just as Yuriko was braking hard for a turn , they collided and were both out of the race from damage.

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Sulla over ran a turn and went into grass allow in me to move by into first , and now i was being chased. Sulla hung on wonderfully in the increasing dark ,untill the end of lap 21 where it was my turn to over run a turn a bit, Sulla got by and hung on for the win , myself 2nd, Caz 3rd, Rattra finished 4th after Jafo crashed on the last lap when in 4th and Suku finished 5th.

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Round 7 takes us to the California desert and the high speed Laguna Seca track .