The unpopularity of this car was confirmed by the fact, that a record (negative unfortunately) 20 racers took part. Although at least 60% percent of the 20 were also among the haters, but I have to praise them for their mentality, because they'll take part in each race they can, no matter what car they have to drive.

On to the qualifying then! Norbi had the 34 lap, and the pole I promised you last time around, he was almost 8 tenths faster, than the 2nd placed driver Roly. At least here it was very close between the racers, as I (csűrdöngülős) followed in 3rd place, with only 0.02 seconds behind Roly, Prezsi was 4th with a time of 1:35.55, while Ájjle Bobbi completed the top 5.
Here is the starting order:

1. Norbi 1:34.69
2. Roly 1:35.47
3. csűrdöngülős 1:35.49
4. Prezsi 1:35.55
5. ÁjjLE Bobbi 1:35.65
6. Vertic 1:35.96
7. Gergő 1:36.30
8. king13 1:35.72*
9. Marki 1:36.54
10. Palee 1:35.98*
11. cactus 1:36.73
12. Csti 1:37.19
13. atib 1:37.80
14. laube 1:38.05
15. TasMan 1:38.15
16. Light 1:38.36
17. Reechy 1:39.57
18. Lajoosh 1:40.01
19. Chase 1:40.25
20. domino 1:41.06

*- due toincidents in the last race, they were sent back 2 places from their original ones

Because of the small number of participants, we had 12 drivers in group A, and 8 in group B. This was the first time since the S1 patch came out, that allowed 15 drivers on a server, that the A server wasn't full. This is sad.

The start was clean, except for the fact, that csti went over the curbs in the 1st turn, and couldn't turn in, so he lost some time there. However he wasn't able to catch up anymore, and finished last. Cactus was the surprise man in group A, he didn't manage to impress in the previous races, but he almost got into the top ten this time, good job! Palee couldn't quite find the rhytm this time, he only finished in 10th place, he made several mistakes although he was in a good 7th place in the first few laps, but he lost it later on. He was the unfortunate victim of the tyres I made fly around on lap 15, he tried to avoid them by going off the track and lost a place there. Marki was 9th, he had some really nice fights with king13 in the 1st part of the race, but he couldn't keep up with him in the end. Prezsi finished in a disappointing 8th position, despite having the fastest hlvc time of our racers (Norbi has not done any hotlaps), he has not found his form, had a crash on the 9th lap, where he put the car onto its side, and lost five places, until then, he was running in 4th. He even fell back to 10th , after Marki was pushing behind him, and made a wonderful pass on the outside into the righthander under the bridge.

In the next lap, he lost another 5 seconds, to make his catch-up even more difficult. Until lap 29 he was running still in 10th, behind Palee and Marki. These 3 were very close, but we didn't see any overtaking manouvers. However at the end of lap 29 Marki made a mistake on the entrance of the start/finish straight, allowing Prezsi to take 9th place. On the penultimate lap Prezsi was in a position to pass Palee on the bridge, but under braking they touched, which made Palee spin and he lost 2 places, he wasn't happy I'm sure.

King13 worked his way up nicely from 10th place on the grid, profiting from the mistakes of others, making quite a few himself though, which prevented him from finishing higher. My teammate Vertic ended up in 6th position, which is pretty decent, considering the fact, that he doesn't practice as much, as he did last season. He could have finished higher, but he was already focusing on composing his comments of the race, (which he still hasn't written) which cost him some time, and 2 places. Ájjle Bobbi finished in 5th place, he was always in the action, near some other racers, but he couldn't get past Gergő, who finished 4th, came up from 9th place and had an excellent race. He wasn't the quickest around today, but he was surely one of the most consistent drivers out there and that is the key to a good position in such long races. I finished where I started, in 3rd place. I had a lot of action though, mainly of my own fault, as I was right behind roly in the first 10 laps, and not very far back (about 2-3 secs) until lap 14, where I hit the wall at the entrance of the bridge and spun straight into the other plank, I lost about 10 seconds and 2 places here. On the next lap I hit the tyres, where Bobbi got past too, and where Palee lost a position while trying to avoid the spread out tyres. From then I started my fightback. First I passed Vertic, who made 2 mistakes to fall back from 3rd, to 6th. Then it was Bobbi, I passed him on the bridge.

It took 7 laps to catch up with Gergő and I passed him on the 31st lap, at the same place where I overtook Bobbi. From then on I tried to drive calmly, without any success though, and I made a lot of small mistakes, but I held on to 3rd place 'til the end. Roly had a boring race as he himself said, after the first 10 laps, he wasn't in any danger of losing his 2nd place and he just tried to keep it straight until the end, he was successful. Norbi pulled away from the rest as usual and took a solid victory, without having to make too much effort.

Group B saw a clean 1st and 2nd corner, but at the 1st split laube and Light spun out (they didn't touch each other though), to rejoin at the back of the pack. However both fought back, with laube taking 2nd behind AtiB, who had a relaxed race to the finish. Lajoosh took a decent 3rd place. Light could make it up to 4th place after the 1st lap incident, with Reechy, domino and Chase following. TasMan disconnected.

So, next up is the lx6, I hope there will be a little more racers, than this time. We'll see!
Have a nice day! :)

Article with nice pics on LFS-News