Boone Captures Second Racing Crown!

As a first time GM, I want to thank all the players who raced with me this year. I know it was a learning experience for me. I made some mistakes that I will correct next year. Please forgive me and let's look forward.

We had a few more participants than last year. With luck we will grow more next year. A couple of notes from the qualifying Heats. Rich Shipley showed everyone it is possible to spin 5 times in one race and still finish. He managed to do this while finishing ahead of 2 people. I have to wonder who was driving the other cars. There is no glory in last place so race hard! Although I am not sure spinning 5 times can be incorporated into a winning strategy. The GM demonstrated how to race faster in 4th gear than in 5th gear. I consistently rolled 12 on the green die (4th) while consistently rolling 11 on the purple die (5th). I managed to roll eleven 5 times at the most inopportune times. I am checking with the pit crew chief to see if we bought our engines at junkyards.

We had one double winner who advanced straight to the Final. Congratulations to Kevin Burns. The remainder had to survive and advance on two very tough Semifinal boards. Past champion and GM Josh Githens took a chance to remain in contention and it didn't pay off as he was eliminated in the Semifinal. The GM had more engine difficulties. I managed to fail 3 engine checks on the first lap. More evidence our engines were either purchased second hand or sabotaged! Race officials have launched a formal inquiry.

Here are the Finalists: Kevin Burns, Keith Boone, Evan Boone, Brian Hixon, Haakon Monson, Sarah Mellinger, Jim Savarick, Eric Meade and Dan Beard. Congrats to all for surviving and making the Final. Here are some notes from the Final.

Brian had a fast start off the line but wasn't able to capitalize on this. Haakon had a Triple slip stream at the first corner! Brian was able to slipstream into the second corner. Sarah had some bad luck going from corner 1 to 2. Rolling a 20 in 5th gear into a two stop second corner, she had no room left and after doubling down, spun. Also in this corner, something I have never seen in 20 years. Evan was boxed in and had nowhere to go. He was forced to downshift to first gear and would have crashed on a 2 but managed to roll a 1 and remain in the race. In corner 6 we lost our first finalist, Dan. He overshot the corner and was eliminated. We lost our second finalist, Jim just before the 9th corner. He exited due to engine failure. Maybe he got his spare engines for the race from the GM? Eric was out next on an engine check. This track was hard on the engines apparently. Sarah spins at the 7th corner. With Keith and Brian down to their last engine, the race continued. The race continued but Keith had it in control He led all the laps and had a healthy lead. For most of the race he was turns ahead of the pack. Kevin took his pole position to a second place finish. Evan survived near death to take the bronze.