When we last left our hero’s, Lux Surge and Steve, they were in a 3 way tie for 2nd place. That was from their best 6 of 7 events so far, based on the “best 6 of 8 events for Championship” format that is used for scoring. This allows participants to choose their schedule around other commitments (as if there is life outside the track!).
Round 8 was at the aforementioned world famous Buttonwillow Raceway Park, utilizing the Time Attack benchmark #13CW circuit. If you’ll recall, Lux and Steve had both done an event here earlier in the year (Round 2), in which Lux won 2:16 to 2:18 (Surge had as of yet not experienced the technical driver’s mecca that is BRP 13CW).
The racer’s arrived to freezing temps of 29*, hardly ideal for any sort of street/competitive tire to find traction. With this in mind all knew they had the morning to work some heat into the tires, before putting in the hot laps later that afternoon.
Session 3 was the first shot at solid hot laps, with Surge setting the fastest lap time of 2:12.022 to Lux’s 2:14.388 and Steve’s 2.13.214. Based on this ranking, that placed Surge of LSL Motorsports squarely into 2nd place for the Championship (not to mention 1st place to win 4 NITTO NT-05’s for the event)! But the day was not over yet…
Session 4 seemed to be the one where everyone’s best last chance remained, as the winter sun was getting low on the horizon, signifying the return of frozen tarmac. Surge ran into mechanical problems and had to bow out, leaving it a dog fight between Lux and Steve. Here is where things get really interesting, based on the best 6 of 8 scoring:
Lux is going to drop his 0 and 7 point events for the Championship (lowest 2)
Surge and Steve are both going to drop two 0’s
That means if Steve could beat Surge and be no worse than 1 place behind, he could win 2nd place for the 2013 Championship! 1.19 second was no large margin and seemed feasible, but Lux still had some fight left in him, Steve had his work cut out for him
At the end of the session Steve went to check his times…2:11.754, he had done it! He beat both Surge and Lux…wait, wait Lux had dropped 4.5 second off his prior session, to an eye popping 2:09.919!! This placed Lux squarely in 1st for the day, with 4 NT-05’s, and Steve in 2nd with 2 NT-05’s.
There was 1 last session right as the sun was setting. Lux and Surge had packed it in as the temps were again falling fast…but Steve wanted one last shot at it (there were 2 additional NT-05’s on the line after all)! Double checking his tire pressures and adjusting the rear strut dampening, Steve headed out for what he hoped would be a shot at glory.
While it felt faster, he just wasn’t sure it was enough. He only got 3 laps, all with sporadic traffic, but hoped the cold weather would help with straight line speeds…..2:10.998, another ¾ second faster, but still 1 second behind Lux.
Final ranking for Round 8 at BRP 13CW:
Lux in 1st2:09.9196.23 seconds faster than R2
Steve in 2nd2:10.9987.02 seconds faster than R2
Surge in 3rd2:12.022future benchmark
But more importantly to our 2013 Championship, Steve had beat Surge and placed no worse than 1 spot behind Lux, winning 2nd place and the Eibach gift card as well!
A huge thank you to the 2013 AWD Competition Sponsors: NITTO Tires, Infamous Performance, Eibach Springs and Road Race Engineering