A short track race under the lights at Richmond International Speedway was a great atmosphere for the seventh round of the iamINDY.de championship, which also marks the series half-way point. The car owners’ mantra for race was clear: bring it home – in one piece.? The challenge: conquer the 220 lap race on the shortest oval (.75 miles) of this season’s schedule. One could think it would be hard to keep concentration up, but not for Yang Ou.
After a four lap qualification top favorite Ou was able to give a taste his speed: with his pole lap in just 15.569 seconds Ou almost equaled his qualification world record time with 15.514 seconds. Behind him, Marty Sponsler took second on the grid, more than a tenth behind – a huge gap on such a short track. Henrik Müller who, has also had very good races at Richmond in the past, took third ahead of championship title defender Tim Doyle.
On the start Ou didn’t wait and stood on the throttle the moment the pace car peeled off into the pits, rapidly opening a gap to the field. Behind him everything shuffled up a bit.? Müller got inside Sponsler, opening the door for a following Doyle who got a really good start and brought himself in position to go past? both cars into second coming into Turn Three.? Spongler saw his chance and recaptured third place while Niles Anders, who started from position six, came along for the ride into fourth. That kind of action always conjures up images of contact and crashes – but nothing happened, everything stayed clean.
Marty Sponsler heads the chase of the fast-disappearing Yang Ou.
Jay MacFarland’s hopes for a long and good race got buried early in the event.? Having skipped the qualifications runs, he had to pit after just five laps check a sticking brake pedal.? Unfortunately,? his pit crew found it was impossible to repair it in time to give him any hope of improving his position. Speaking about a skipped qualification: John Paquin’s strong practice form seemed to promise a tight battle with Ou.? But shortly before qualifications began a local electrical black-out in Paquin’s hometown destroyed his hopes for a great race.
The early race went on very cleanly, with Ou setting the pace and Doyle trying to stay in his draft.?? Then came to Lap 56 when Niles Anders (car #13!) just was about to go around a lapped car coming into Turn One when right front tire failed.? Anders made it as far as Turn 2 before hitting the wall and those unlucky enough to be directly behind? - namely? Müller and Mark Schutte — had no chance of avoiding? his damaged car.? A fifth-placed Sponsler was very fortune to miss the crashing cars just by inches. He opted to scrape along the outside wall, well-knowing this would probably ruin the balance of his car but at least give him a last chance to finish the race after 220 laps rather than at this exact moment. His deal worked, but the last 164 laps were a hard work to bring the car home due to damaged suspension.
After the usual round of first pit stops,Ou held his lead followed by Doyle who worked really hard to stay in touch with the leader. Both cars often were just separated by a couple of seconds or less.
Lap 123 saw Bill Krause pay the price for abusing his right front tire – with bad results for the driver and his car. He crashed into the wall coming out of Turn Four, triggering the second yellow of the race just as the window opened for the final round of pit stops. It would be a hard -but not impossible - run to make the last 95 laps after the stop under green. On the other hand, there really was no choice at all on a short track like this because one would lose about two laps with a green flag pit stop. Don’t forget the painfully slow speed limit of 40 mph in the pits!
Only on iRacing can you enjoy the spectacle of the IndyCar Series at Richmond at night.
On Lap 183 Jeff York solid but inconspicuous race took a turn for the worse, when he got very lose coming out of Turn Two while going high to let the leader by.? Although he caught his spinning car before contacting the wall, the incident brought-out the third caution of the evening. Under yellow Doyle somehow decided to do emulateYork,? making a nice show for the spectators with? a 360 on the front stretch – also with no contact.
After this entertaining yellow the old saying “cautions breeds cautions” was again proven.? While nothing changed up front, Andrew Aitken (who had had some previous encounters with the wall) lost his car in Turn Three, collecting? the hard fighting Sponsler in the bargain. With these two final cautions all strategies were equalized. Almost all that is!? Ou’s pit crew seemed to have some problems with the refueling system and gave their driver a full (read “heavy”) fuel load. So the fastest car on track now had a handicap of about an extra half tank of virtual ethanol.
Perhaps you are already familiar with Ou and have seen or read about his previous performances.?? There is not much to add this time: despite his seeming disadvantage, Ou had the speed and endurance to pull away again to secure his “triple:” pole position, fastest lap and race win.
Yang Ou made it a clean sweep at Richmond: pole, fastest lap and the race win.
Behind the winner, Doyle made the best out of his performance and took as many points as possible.? We also have to mention Gary Borkenhagen, whose third place finish completed the podium. He really knows how to keep his nose clean and to stay out of any trouble.? Jeff York earned a good fourth despite his little moments in the race, while Daniel Ensch took head to the “bring it home – in one piece” concept and completed the top five with a sensible drive.
All in all it was a very clean and fair race again which brought Ou the leadership in the point standings back. Mülled dropped back into second spont while defending champion Doyle now lays 76 points behind Ou in third. The hard charger in the point standings certainly is Borkerhagen who came out of nowhere and gained 20 spots (now in 28th position) thanks to his third place finish.
With three more road courses as well as three oval races the teams and their drivers are just getting up to temperature for the final battle. The next race in almost two weeks will be contested on Braselton, Georgia’s classic and hilly venue: Road Atlanta. ? 75 laps and 191 miles at Road Atlanta will be a true challenge. After that little warm-up the series will move on to the season highlight with the famous Indianapolis 500 mile race. The oval race in four weeks will also be broadcast by the Web Racing Network (WRN) – better make circle the date (in red) on your schedule now to not miss a great event.
Image gallery:
http://www.iamindy.de/index.php/image-gallaries/106-richmond-220-7th-november-2010-713.html
About the iamINDY.de series
The iamINDY.de series is a private hosted iRacing series which simulates the real IndyCar series as close as possible. With more than hundred members from all over the world and also some famous names like Pagenaud, Power or Foyt it offers every IndyCar or racing fan a good challenge. The “full length” races (about 1:30 h) are every two weeks on Sundays at 17:00 GMT (12:00 pm EST or 18:00 CET). Between the race weekends practice sessions are offered where can be worked on the setup. Beside that the series understands itself as a community of gentlemen drivers where clean and fair racing comes first in conjunction with having fun. Everybody who is interested in taking part in can sign up on the website: www.iamindy.de
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