LFS Beginner's Cup Round 6 Race Report
Written by Joseph Ellis, 12 October '08
The Rallycross round of the LFS Beginner's cup began with the cars of David Novak, new driver Jörgen Kursk and Yann Laprevotte on the front row of the grid. Stefan Alfons was to start from the pitlane, due to arriving after Qualifying had ended. Mathei and Keaveney got off to a flying start, passing Kursk on either side. It all seemed to be going well, until Laprevotte and Novak came close to being obliterated by the #21 XFG of Alfons, which came hurtling across the track, flying through the air. The race was immediately red flagged, and racers returned to the pit lane. The cause of the incident appeared to be contact of Alfons' car with the pit wall.
The race was restarted, with cars in the same order as before. Once again, Mathei and Keaveney got a great start, and replicated the double overtake that had been seen at the first start of the race. Kursk managed to regain a position from Mathei, and attempted a pass on Keaveney as they entered the back straight, but it went badly wrong. Both cars spun, and the spinning XFG of Keaveney was hit by Chris Karsten. Keaveney ended up with his car on its roof. The race was red flagged yet again, much to the frustration of the drivers.
Once again, the race was restarted. Going into turn 1, Kursk managed to hold off Mathei and Keaveney, who attempted the same passing manoeuvre as before. Departing from the first corner, Russell managed to overtake Keaveney. Meanwhile, Mathei made a risky pass on Kursk, in which he took out Laprevotte. Laprevotte lost three positions because of this, and Mathei ended up being passed by the entire field. Going into lap 2, Mathei made up a place on Alfons, and Laprevotte managed to re-pass Keaveney, putting him in 4th.
Through lap 3, Karsten and Mathei were battling fiercely for 8th place. Mathei secured the position after Karsten went wide as he exited the final turn of lap 4. At the front of the pack things were rather uneventful, but the drivers were lapping quickly and consistently, setting laps in the low to mid 1.10s.
Lap 11 saw a scrap between Mathei and Jelinek for 6th place. Mathei struggled to keep up, allowing Jelinek to keep the position. As the race progressed, Mathei often got close to passing Jelinek, but never quite had the speed to pull it off. However, on lap 16 he stormed through on the approach to the final corner, and grabbed 6th.
Further up the field, in 3rd place, Russell was experiencing severe clutch heat problems, which had slowed him down to a 50mph crawl. Keaveney passed him, then Mathei, followed by Jelinek, until he was last, in 10th place. Karsten also suffered broken rear suspension on the second-to-last lap, after taking the final turn jump too fast. This hindered his performance and eventually resulted in him spinning. Following this he was not able to get going again, and needed a push. As the first cars crossed the finish line, Russell started up his car, and managed to get to the end of the race, but finished 4 laps behind.
The race saw little action, but the quality of the racing was massively better than that of last year's rally round. David Novak led from start to finish, and Jörgen Kursk did very well for his first LFSBC race, finishing 2nd ahead of Yann Laprevotte.
