JRL: Warp Speed For Ramsden In Texas!
- NR2k2
- Published ()
- JustRacin League
The Lone Star State does everything big and nobody doubts that the Texas Motor Speedway is one of the biggest attractions in the big state. One of the fastest tracks on the NASCAR schedule it always seems to make for great racing at least for the sim racers out there. Would it live up to its reputation this week for the JustRacin League? Let’s find out.
Stock Division
Qualifying for the Samsung-Radio Shack 200 Stock Division race got of to a tenuous start on Tuesday as Kevin King took the pole by 2 one hundredths of a second over Dan Epp. Roger Voss, Mike Ramsden, and Mark Lewis also started up front in the top 5 in a session which saw the top 25 separated by 2 tenths of a second!
The race proved to be a fun one for all involved. The lead was swapped 12 times among 10 different drivers and the pace was only slowed for 29 of 134 laps. Not bad relative to the rest of the years racing and outstanding compared to last weeks Bristol melee.
Once the field shook out the front runners where clearly established as Dmitri Charaev, Chris Mangano, and Mike Ramsden all led a good share of the race. When it was all over though no one had anything for the newly crowned Virtual Racing World champion, Ramsden led the most laps in route to his second win of the season.
Following him to the line was Chris Mangano with another strong run. Paul Hoffman was 3rd with Kevin King 4th. And congratulations go to veteran Mark Lewis with his first top 5 of the season.
Modified Division
Ironically this week the Stock race was the calm before the storm as the Modified division race would see an unusual outcome which was unfortunately beyond the scope of the JRL officials to fix.
Qualifying had only 16 drivers brave enough to tackle the Super Speedway as the rest of the 24 car starting field took provisionals, safe in the knowledge that everyone would make the show. Kevin King took the pole by over a tenth of a second from Dmitri Charaev. CW Webster, Bob Crane, and Tom Robbio also grabbed top 5 starting spots while no one was looking.
The race only saw 4 cautions for 16 of the 167 scheduled laps. Most of the saga was dominated by King who wound up with the 5 bonus points for leading 90 laps. Unfortunately for Kevin an odd turn of fate would take the lead out of his hands in the weaning laps of the race.
According to reports after the race Kevin said he had over a 3 second lead heading into the final 14 laps and was pulling away from second place Ramsden. Regrettably though, his poor connection would once again bite him as he says the scoring started only counting 1 out of every 2 laps. So by the end of the race instead of in victory lane, Kevin found himself 6 laps behind the winner Ramsden.
After hours of review and analysis by the JRL Administration, Ramsden was officially declared the winner of the Samsung-Radio Shack 250 on Friday. The following statement was released by Tom Robbio the League Administrator speaking on behalf of the Administration Board on the topic:
Kevin being put multiple laps down was not due to a track bug or some other factor beyond Kevin's control. It's arguable that Kevin's warping was not of his control, but, the primary responsibility for connection quality has to be with the driver, and unfortunate as it is for Kevin, the results for the Modified Texas race will remain as is. It presents too much of a problem to adjust scoring based on warp. We have not done this in the past for other drivers who have had similar problems, and we cannot start now. Connection issues are nothing new to this group of experienced racers. If we make an exception here, then we can expect the emails from everyone that this has happened to and will happen to in the future.
So Ramsden pulls of the sweep! Something that is very rare in the JustRacin League, apparently something only the VRW champion could manage. Jeff Shell, Ramsden’s teammate, was placed second, followed by Tom Robbio, Dan Epp, and Jon Nelson.
With yet another breathtaking week of racing behind us lets take a look at the points after the seventh race of the season. In the Stock division Roger Voss hangs on to the top spot by a now slim margin of 17 points over Mike Ramsden who moves up 2 spots this week thanks to the win as well as a 22 nd place finish by Voss. Rounding out the top 5 are Tom Robbio, Tom Oliver, and Thomas McKie who takes over 5 th from Erick Thomas.
In the Modified division Ramsden continues his strangle hold as we near the halfway mark of the season. Mike now has a 102 point lead over his teammate Jeff Shell, with a stunning 3.4 average finish. Shell and Robbio in 3 rd are keeping touch both about 100 points out, but Joey Caporicci and Jeff Weltz are not as they are both about 200 points behind in 4th and 5th.
And that’s how things went this week for the JustRacin League. As usual lots of excitement and even a few bruised egos but fortunately not too much bent sheet metal. Please look back here next week as the JRL tackles the new Kansas Speedway as a replacement for Martinsville. We where all looking forward to another white knuckle short track but unfortunately the Papyrus pace car driver refused to cooperate.