Road Atlanta - real world home of "Petite LeMans" races.  15 drivers tackled round 8 of the 2010 Spring TWRR series.  Did we see a repeat winner?  Did we have an exciting finish and battle for 3rd?  What is the limit to Fulvio's ability of gaining the most positions?  Read on to find out...

Petteri Kotovaara clocked a 1:17.111 during qualifying securing his 2nd pole position of the season.  Mike Kadlcak lined up on the outside, Paul Langford and Bogdan Cosofret occupied row 2 on the grid.  Behind them were Rik Walker and Ben Daniels.

At the start, Paul had a slip up and gets a black flag for false start.  This gives Ben, Patrick and Rik a run past Paul into turn 1.  Ben backs off, Rik and Patrick go 2-wide, with some contact between the latter two.  Rik ends up retiring from the race after an immediate second off.  Patrick manages to keep it somewhat together and rejoins at the top of the esses... only to lose it on the curbs and is collected by the unfortunate Ray.

Closing up on the completion of the first lap, Paul rear-ends Baz at the bottom of the slow esses (turn 10b), and this creates another local mess with Baz, Paul and Kat.  Jon, Markus and Fulvio are all forced to go through the beach for evasive actions.  Kat ends up flipping Paul's car and shares his paint with Baz as they're all attempting to get it going.  All three immediately shoot for the pits - luckily just around the corner.

Petteri leading after lap 1 looses the lead due to contact with the concrete barriers at the crest of the Esses and is forced to get a tow plus spares.  Eventually he rejoins in 9th place, still on the lead lap.  Two laps later (lap 4), the same spot creates a problem for Jon, which causes a slight 3-car pile up involving Ben and Markus.  Although there was only contact between Ben and Markus.  Ben comes out in 4th, Fulvio in 5th, followed by Jon and Markus.

On lap 15, Bogdan takes advantage of traffic and gets a run on Mike out of 8, through 9 and into 10a.  From there on, he manages to keep it ahead of Mike.  3rd place Bob gets a little tank slapper on lap 18 and smacks the outside wall of turn 4 heading for the Esses - this damage is relevant later on...  On lap 24, Ben's car gets a bit out of hand and runs into the bridge at the top of turn 11.  The massive damage costs him 4th place as he falls down to 9th.  In the meantime, polesitter Petteri is closing in on 3rd place Bob.  As mentioned previously, Bob is carrying some damage on the front right, though he is still able to run 20s.  However, Petteri manages to catch up and pulls off a pass going into turn 10a for 3rd place.

The battle for 1st was almost constant minus the few laps towards the end after 2nd place Mike's couple mistakes.  Congratulations to Bogdan for his very first win in the Trans-World Radical Racing series!  Early leader Mike crossed the S/F line 16 seconds behind and polesitter Petteri takes 3rd place over 50 seconds behind the leader.

Turn 1 - Patrick and Rik get together.  Further back Keith goes off as well.

Still lap 1, Baz is tagged by Paul who in turn is flipped by Kat.

Lap 2 - Pit crews are working overtime to get spares ready and filled up.

Jon gets too hot into Turn 4 and cautious Markus catches Ben by surprise...

Only a few corners to go and polesitter Petteri trying for 3rd.

Bogdan becomes the 5th different winner in 8 races in the TWRR series!  Congratulations for a well fought win.

Qualifying Results

Race Results

Fastest Lap:  Mike Kadlcak, 1:17.608
Highest Climber:  Fulvio Policardi, 10 positions gained

Driver of the day award:  Barry "Baz" West

Once again this race had a few nominees for this reward.  Baz showed the dedication idealized in this league which is to lower your chin and grind it out even when things aren't going your way.  Baz was hit twice on the same lap, three times overall, none of which being his fault.  Despite all this, we crossed the finish line 3 laps down.  Other noteworthy mentions are Fulvio - once again his sand bagging skills shine and he climbs from last to 5th :).  Petteri finally started using the available tows, and managed to finish 3rd despite running on full tanks.

Link to official iRacing results is here.

Next Sunday brings us the 9th round of the TWRR championship at the Mosport.  It's still not too late to register if you haven't already done so.  Only the best 9 of the 12 races run by each driver will be counted towards the championship - so there still is time to join the fun!